Airtel's EA unit revenue jumps 10pc

Airtel's total revenues for the year stood at $4.98b. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The East African operations of Airtel Africa contributed nearly half of the revenues that the telecommunications operator made over the financial year to March 2024.

The London Stock Exchange-listed telco said total revenues for the year stood at $4.98 billion (Sh667 billion) in the year to March 2024 - a 5.3 per cent drop from $5.26 billion (Sh705 billion) it posted in 2023.

Of this, its operations in East Africa contributed $2.13 billion (Sh285.2 billion) or 42.6 per cent of the total revenues. The East Africa business region includes Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The region's contribution is in comparison to Nigeria, which solely contributed $1.5 billion (Sh201 billion), translating to 30 per cent of the total revenues. The balance of the revenues was from what Airtel Africa has clustered as Francophone Africa made of seven French-speaking countries.

Compared to 2023, revenues for the East African business segment grew 10 per cent, driven by mobile revenues that grew 19 per cent and data revenues increasing 15 per cent. Voice revenues registered a modest growth of 1.8 per cent.

Currency volatility

Overall, Airtel Africa reported a net loss of $89 million (Sh11.9 billion) for the financial year to March 2024, a 111.9 per cent drop compared to a profit of $750 million (Sh100.5 billion) reported over a similar period in 2023.

The telecommunications firm with a presence in 14 African countries attributed the loss to currency volatility in Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia.

"Loss after tax of $89 million (Sh11.9 billion) during the year ended 31 March 2024 was primarily impacted by the $549 million (Sh73 billion) net of tax impact of the exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses.

Excluding these exceptional items, profit after tax for the year ended March 31, 2024, was $460 million (Sh61 billion)," said the company. In East Africa, the firm grew its subscriber base by 10 per cent to 69.4 million subscribers. The number of its data customers in the region stood at 26.6 million, having grown 21.5 per cent during the year.

"The customer base growth was largely driven by the expansion of both increased network coverage and the increasing scale of the distribution network. Voice average revenue per user growth of 3.6 per cent was supported by an increase in voice usage per customer by six per cent to 407 minutes per customer per month," said Airtel.

The firm has a subscriber base of 152.7 million customers in Africa.