Airtel Africa operations clocked in a net profit of USD$88 million for the second quarter this fiscal, down 8.3% year-on-year (YoY), hurt by higher net finance costs. Airtel’s profit after tax after exceptional items, however, grew 54.3% from preceding quarter’s USD$57 million.
During the July-September period, Airtel’s subscriber base across 14 African countries grew 4.4% on-quarter and stood at 116.4 million with an average revenue per user of USD$2.8, up from preceding quarter’s USD$2.6.
Airtel’s mobile money transaction value shot up 28.87% to USD$116.4 million sequentially. The mobile money revenue was USD$100 million and average revenue per user was USD$1.7 during the period.
Raghunath Mandava, CEO, Airtel Africa said the company’s mobile money business grew with constant currency revenue growth of 33.9%, up 8% from the prior quarter, as lockdown restrictions were eased and fees on certain transactions, which had been previously waived, were largely reintroduced.
“We also continued to enter new partnerships with leading institutions such as WorldRemit, MoneyGram, Standard Chartered Bank, and Mukuru to increase use cases and improve customers’ access to digital payments and financial services,” Mandava said in a statement.
Although the company is wary of a potential second wave of Covid19 spread in Africa, “We are in a strong financial position to capture the opportunities in a fast-growing region that is vastly underpenetrated in terms of mobile and banking services,” the CEO said.
Consolidated revenue stood at USD$965 million, having increased 14.3% from corresponding quarter last year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was also up 17.4% at USD$437 million.
“Growth was recorded across all regions: Nigeria up 20.2%, East Africa up 21.9% and Francophone Africa up 4.4%, and services, with voice revenue up by 7.0%, data by 33.4% and mobile money by 30.4%,” the company said.
Airtel’s voice usage per customer increased from 218 minutes to 235 minutes sequentially while data usage per customer was down from 2607 MB to 2576 MB.
Source: Economic Times
