Airtel Africa's customer base grew by 6.9% to 118.2 million, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 14.5%) and mobile money services (customer base up 18.5%).
"Airtel Africa customer base grew with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 14.5%) and mobile money services (customer base up 18.5%). The recent slowdown in customer base growth has been due to new SIM registration regulations in Nigeria," said a financial statement from the flagship company Bharti Airtel.
According to a report in PTI, a net profit of $154 million in the fourth quarter this fiscal which doubled on-year and jumped 32.7% sequentially on the back of strong growth in data and mobile money revenue, besides lower interest and tax expenses.
The underlying revenue for the fourth quarter ended March 31 stood at $1,038 million, rising 15.4% year-on-year (YoY) on a reported currency basis.
In a press release, Airtel Africa said for the full year ended March 31, the reported revenue grew 14.2% to $3,908 million.
"Growth was recorded across all regions: Nigeria up 21.9%, East Africa up 23.5% and Francophone Africa up 10%; and across key services, with revenues for voice up 11.0%, data up 31.2% and mobile money up 35.5%," it said.
Raghunath Mandava, chief executive officer, 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% in underlying revenue and 18.3% in underlying EBITDA, and constant currency growth of 19.4% and 25.2% 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"
"In line with our strategy of unlocking value in our mobile money business, we will soon welcome two new minority investors (The Rise Fund and Mastercard) in agreed transactions which value this part of our business at $2.65bn, as well as bringing $300m into the Group. We have also agreed to sell more of our tower portfolio, yielding yet more cash for the business," Raghunath added.