Airtel Nigeria reports $1.55bn in revenue despite stifling regulatory environment on SIM registration

Charles Abuede

Nigeria’s leading telecommunications giant, Airtel Africa, has reported a 14.2 per cent year on year growth in its group revenue to $3.91 billion for the year ended March 2021. The growth in revenue, according to the wireless carrier was driven by 19.4 per cent growth in underlying constant currency revenue, partially offset by currency devaluations, mainly in the Nigerian naira by 10 per cent as well as recorded in other countries of operations.

According to the company in its full-year consolidated financial statement, Nigeria, on regional performance, recorded revenue growth of 13.1 per cent in reported currency to $1.55 billion from $1.37 billion in the same period last year. Also, voice revenue grew 13.9 per cent in the year to $897 million. The growth was driven by customer base growth of 0.5 per cent, and voice ARPU growth of 2.9 per cent, supported by an increase in voice usage per customer, up 12.4 per cent. The customer base growth was supported by continued expansion of our distribution network and network infrastructure, with a slowdown in customer base growth in the second half of the year attributable to new “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) requirements in Nigeria.

Revenue from data in Nigeria has always been a key driver of Nigeria revenue growth, with constant currency revenue growth of 36.2 per cent. This was driven by 5.6 per cent growth in the number of data customers, and 15.3 per cent growth in data ARPU. The data customer base growth was supported by the expansion of our 4G network, with 84 per cent of total sites now on 4G.

Despite the recent announcement by the company on the investments by TPG limited and Mastercard on its mobile money arm, Airtel Africa reported a 35.5 per cent revenue growth in its mobile money business to $401 million. The growth was driven by 18.5 per cent growth of the customer base and the 53.6 per cent growth in transaction value. However, the customer base growth was largely driven by the expansion of its distribution network, as the wireless carrier continued to invest in exclusive kiosks and mobile money branches. Meanwhile, Airtel Africa’s mobile money customer base reached 21.7million, up 18.5 per cent from the prior year.

Commenting on the trading update, Raghunath Mandava, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa, said, “In these challenging times I want to say a huge thank you to all our employees, our business partners, and governments and regulators who have supported us, and in turn facilitated our continued support to the economies and communities we serve.

“Our performance has been strong, with reported growth of 13.6 per cent in underlying revenue and 18.3 per cent in underlying EBITDA, and constant currency growth of 19.4 per cent and 25.2 per cent respectively. Contributions to this growth came across all regions, with particular improvement in Francophone Africa, and across all our major services, with mobile money, data and voice each posting double-digit revenue growth.

Meanwhile, Airtel Africa Board has recommended a final dividend of 2.5 cents per share, making the total dividend for FY21 4.0 cents per share.