Airtel Africa Plc’s profit surged amid economic uncertainties in emerging and frontier markets as it consistently deliver growth across voice, data and mobile money.
The company’s performance was largely driven by double-digit growth in Nigeria and East Africa, while it crossed 100 million customers, an important milestone.
“Nigeria is our largest market and we have in recent past invested in 4G, which makes us well ahead of the industry,” said Raghunath Mandava Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, during a conference call.
“This has helped our revenue growth. We see a further uptick in the country. There are immense opportunities in Africa, and we plan to invest in broadband,” said Mandava.
Airtel Africa, a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd, said pretax profit for the first six months ended 30 September 2019 surged by 172.10 per cent to $316 million from $122 million a year earlier.
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Total revenue rose 11.40 percent to $1.64 billion in the six months through September, boosted by a 10.40 percent customer base to $104 million despite the tough and unpredictable macroeconomic environment.
Airtel Africa said it has completed its network modernization in nine countries (Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Congo B, Gabon, Madagascar and Seychelles) and continued the modernization in other countries.
“This performance underlines our ability to consistently grow in double digits, powered by our growth engines of data and Airtel Money growing at 37% and 46% respectively,” said Mandava.
The company’s shares closed at N308 10:00an in Lagos valuing it at N1.15 trillion.
The telecommunication giant has maintained a steady dividend policy, which is why investors have continued to swoop on its shares.
The Board approved an interim dividend of $ 3¢per ordinary share. The proposed interim dividend will be paid on 29 November 2019 to shareholders who are on the register of members at close of business on 15 November 2019 (the Record Date).
