Airtel Africa Plc grew its customer base by 8.4 per cent to 120.8 million, with increased penetration across mobile, data and mobile money services.
Also, the company’s revenue grew by 30.7 per cent to $1.112 billion, as the growth partially benefitted from a weakened quarter in the prior year during the peak of COVID-19 restrictions across the region.
In the company’s first quarter (Q1) results ended June 30, 2021, declared to the investing public on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, it also showed that operating profit increased by 67.6 per cent to $352 million in reported currency, due to a combination of strong revenue growth and improvements in operating efficiency while net finance costs were broadly stable in the period.
Profit after tax was $142 million, a 148.7 per cent increase on the $57 million of the prior period. This increase was largely due to higher operating profits along with stable net finance costs, which more than offset the increase in tax charges due to increased profits; while basic earnings per share was 3.3 cents, up from 1.1 cents in the prior period.
The chief executive officer of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava, said the company’s Q1, 2021 results have been very strong, noting that Q1 of last year was impacted by the start of COVID, but even after adjusting for these effects, the Q1, 2021 revenue growth rates for the group, service segments and reporting regions were all ahead of Q4, 2021 trends.
He noted further that the company has posted strong double-digit growth across voice (26.0 per cent), data (37.4 per cent) and mobile money (53.7 per cent) across all its regions.
SOURCE; https://leadership.ng/customer-base-of-airtel-africa-hits-120-8m-in-q1/