Airtel Africa bounced back in the first quarter of 2024 following a challenging 2023 in which losses increased due to currency devaluation in some of its essential countries. In the first quarter of 2023, the telecom company, which has operations in 14 African nations, reported a profit of $31 million after taxes, as opposed to a loss of $151 million.
Macroeconomic headwinds are still present. Due to increased gasoline prices in Nigeria and currency depreciation, the company’s revenue fell 16.1% to $1.15 billion. The telecom will focus on energy-saving and cost-cutting projects to lower network expenses.
Revenue from broadband and mobile money seAirtel Africarvices, which raised Average Revenue per User (ARPU), was the main driver of its robust bottom line. The telco’s East, Central, and West Africa regions saw a rise in mobile money users to 39 million, while data consumers jumped by 13.4% to 64.4 million.
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Voice revenue increased to $476 million, while data revenue increased to $409 million. Sales from mobile money increased to $22 million, with Francophone Africa accounting for 18.4% of sales and East Africa for 31.7%.
After installing more than 5,600 km of fibre cables as part of its ongoing data investment, Airtel’s user base increased to 155.4 million.
Pre-market trading shows a 10% decline in the company’s share price only hours before its Q1 earnings call on Thursday.
Sunil Taldar, the new CEO who took over from Olusegun Ogunsanya in June 2024, stated, “One of our top priorities is to search for new opportunities to further grow our business, especially in the enterprise, fibre, and data centre businesses across our footprint in Africa.”
Work on a data centre, which will be operational by Q1 2026, was started by the telco in March 2024.
Airtel Nigeria came third in voice and internet subscribers
Last month, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that internet subscriptions in Nigeria’s telecom industry increased to 164 million in Q1 2024, while voice users decreased by 3%.
“The total number of active voice subscribers in Q1 2024 was 219,304,281 from the 226,161,713 reported in Q1 2023, indicating a growth rate of –3.03 per cent,” according to an NBS Telecom Data report that was released on Monday. The number of active voice subscribers decreased by 2.41 per cent quarter-over-quarter.
Additionally, it stated that as of Q1 2024, there were 164,368,292 active internet users, up from 157,551,104 in Q1 2023. This is a quarterly gain of 4.33 per cent. On a quarterly basis, this climbed by 0.32 per cent.
According to the survey, MTN maintained its dominant market position in Q1 2024 by securing the highest percentage of subscriptions.
The telecom behemoth reported 81.8 million voice subscribers and 69.4 million internet users. In second place, with 62.2 million voice subscribers and 44.4 million internet users, was Globacom.
Airtel ranked third with 46.8 million internet users and 63.4 million voice subscribers. With 11.7 million voice subscribers and 3.3 million internet users, 9mobile lagged behind.
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Airtel Nigeria won award for best in financial reporting
At the first-ever ICAN-NGX Awards, Airtel Africa triumphed greatly, winning the gold medal in all categories and the Most Outstanding in Financial Reporting category.
A statement claims that the awards were presented at a special ceremony recently conducted at the Lagos headquarters of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
The top 30 most capitalised firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the 2022 financial reporting year were honoured for their excellence in corporate reporting through the awards, which were presented by NGX Regulation Limited and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.
According to the press announcement, Airtel Africa excelled in three main areas: corporate governance, sustainability reporting, and financial reporting. The firm also won first place in the financial reporting category, defeating major players in the sector, including Dangote Cement and MTN Nigeria Communications.