Raghunath Mandava, Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, said during a conference call that on market specifics, Nigeria has been leading the company’s growth with double digit voice revenue.
With a population of 200 million and the proliferation of smartphones, the country will continue to a pace setter for other African countries.
Airtel Nigeria’s revenue increased by 23.40 percent to $995 million as at nine months December 2019 from $805 million the previous year, thanks to a stable foreign exchange rate.
There has been relative stability in the foreign exchange market since the central bank introduced the Investors’ and Exporters’ Window in 2017, a monetary policy tool that helped the country exist its first recession in 25 years.
The growth in revenue was largely driven by voice data growth of 13.50 and data growth of 75 percent.
Voice revenue of 13.90 was driven by customer base of 8.90 percent. The customer base expectation was driven by the efficient sales and distribution network supported by the acceleration rollout of network infrastructure.
Data revenue increased by 75 percent and contributed 71 percent to overall revenue growth for nine month December 2019. Data revenue growth was driven by increase in the customer data base, as a result in the 4G network rollout and data ARPU growth.
The data customer base grew by 12.20 percent driven by the acceleration rollout of network.
Airtel Nigeria has translated top line (sales) impressive performance into bottom line (profit) growth as EBITDA margin increased to 53.70 percent in the period under review from 48.40 percent the previous year.
The company has a freecash flow of $355 million as at nine month period December 2019 from $277 million in December 2018. What this means is that the company has enough ammunitions in its arsenal to fund capital project.
