Airtel Africa Announces $755m Profit for 2022 FY

Airtel Africa Plc has announced $755 million profit for the year ended March 31, 2022 representing an increase of 82 per cent over $415million reported in prior year.

The telecommunication giant’s audited result showed 75.6 per cent increase in profit before tax to $1.2 billion in 2022 from $697million in 2021. With the growth in profit after tax, the management of Airtel Africa recommended a final dividend of 3 cents per share, making total FY’22 dividends 5 cents per share (FY’21: 4 cents).

From the profit & loss figures, Airtel Africa reported a revenue increase of 20.6per cent to $4.7billion in 2022 and 17.8per cent for fourth quarter of 2022.

The company in a statement noted that constant currency underlying revenue growth was strong in all regions: Nigeria up 27.7per cent, East Africa up 22.7per cent and Francophone Africa up 17.2per cent; and across all key services, with revenue in Voice up 15.4per cent, Data up 34.6per cent and Mobile Money up 34.9per cent.

According to Airtel Africa, operating free cash flow of $1.6billion, up 40.5per cent, with net cash generated from operating activities up 20.7per cent to $2.01billion.

“Over the last twelve months the business has repaid nearly $1.4bn of debt at HoldCo as a result of strong cash upstreaming across its OpCos and proceeds from minority investments in mobile money and tower sales,” the company in a statement explained. Airtel Africa reported Customer base of 128.4 million, up 8.7per cent with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 15.2per cent) and mobile money services (customer base up 20.7per cent). NIN/ SIM regulations in Nigeria impacted customer growth in H1, but then returned to strong growth, adding 4 million customers in Nigeria during H2’22.

The chief executive officer, Airtel Africa, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya in a statement said: “This is another strong set of results for Airtel Africa, demonstrating our solid execution as we continue to enrich the lives of a growing number of people through leveraging the sizeable opportunity to promote digital and financial inclusion across our markets.