Airtel Africa said its revenue increased 9.9 percent to $2.522 billion during the nine-month period ended 31 December 2019.
Airtel Africa’s Q3 fiscal 2020 revenue grew 12.8 percent. Airtel Africa said this was the 8th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in constant currency. Airtel Africa recorded growth across all services – 3.9 percent in voice, 39 percent in data and 40.4 percent in mobile money business.
Airtel Africa’s customer base grew 9.4 percent to 107.1 million at the end of December 2019.
Airtel Africa’s underlying EBITDA rose 13.2 percent to $1.118 billion for the nine-month period with EBITDA margin of 44.3 percent.
Airtel Africa generated revenue of $1.463 billion (+1.6 percent) from voice business, $677 million (+36.3 percent) from data business and $228 million (+36.3 percent) from mobile money business during the first nine months.
Airtel Africa’s ARPU increased 2.2 percent to $2.8 per subscriber.
Airtel Africa’s Capex increased 22 percent to $396 million in the first three months of fiscal 2020. Airtel Africa’s Capex in the third quarter dropped 11.8 percent to $150 million despite focusing on expanding its mobile data network in Africa.
Airtel Africa CEO Raghunath Mandava said: “We are increasingly seeing the success of our strategy to lead in the roll-out of our modernised 4G networks, with more than 40 percent increase in data revenues.”
Airtel Nigeria capital expenditure amounted to $180 million, an increase from $112 million in the prior period as the business continued to expand and invest in mobile network infrastructure, as the number of 4G sites increased 1.4x.
Airtel East Africa’s capital expenditure amounted to $121 million, slightly lower than the prior period as a large part of the network modernization in East Africa was completed in the previous year.
Capital expenditure for rest of Africa amounted to $93 million compared with $72 million in the previous period, as it continued to invest in network modernization, the rollout of the 4G network, more than doubling the number of 4G sites.
