Bharti Airtel\u2019s Africa business reported an over 11-fold on-year jump in net profit to $169 million in the fiscal third quarter, on the back of a $94 million exceptional gain triggered by appreciation in key African currencies and a sharp fall in net finance costs. <\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s revenue also rose 2% on-year to nearly $1.27 billion, helped by decent customer additions, higher data usage and growth of its mobile money business. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn Q3\u201925, profit after tax benefitted from an exceptional gain of $94 million (net of tax) following the naira and Tanzanian shilling appreciation,\u201d Airtel Africa said in its earnings statement Thursday. <\/p>\n
Airtel\u2019s Africa unit also launched a second share buyback programme, which will return up to $100 million to shareholders. <\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the completion of the first $100 million buyback, in December 2024 we announced the commencement of a second share-buyback programme that will return up to $100 million to shareholders, the company said. <\/p>\n
It added that the move reflects the Airtel Africa board\u2019s confidence in the continued growth potential, the strength of the company\u2019s balance sheet and consistent cash accretion at the holding company level.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus on speed and quality execution is enabling us to unlock substantial opportunities for growth across our markets and business segments, where demand remains significant, resulting in a further acceleration of constant currency revenue growth in the most recent quarter,\u201d Airtel Africa CEO Sunil Taldar said in an official statement. <\/p>\n
He added that the recent signs of currency stabilisation in some markets and the recent decision from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) regarding tariff adjustments in Nigeria are encouraging and signal a more stable and supportive operating environment. \u201cWhile challenges remain, these developments provide a firm foundation for growth and improved market conditions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s net finance cost (before exceptional items) for the December quarter, FY25, at $217 million was 39% lower on-year due to reduced forex losses. <\/p>\n
Capex for the nine period to December 2024 at $456 million was 7.8% lower compared to the prior period. \u201cCapex guidance for the full year remains between $725 million and $750 million as we continue to invest for future growth,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
Airtel\u2019s Africa unit has also been consistently reducing foreign currency debt exposure, having paid down $739 million of foreign currency debt over the last year. Furthermore, 92% of its OpCo debt (excl. lease liabilities) is now in local currency, up from 79% a year ago. <\/p>\n
The company\u2019s operating (read: ebitda) margins too have expanded from 45.3% in Q1 ’25 to 46.9% in Q3\u201925, triggered by initial success of its cost-efficiency programme.<\/p>\n
Operational performance was steady with Airtel Africa\u2019s ARPU \u2014 a key performance metric \u2014 rising 2.2% sequentially to $2.4 in Q3FY25, helped by decent data usage growth. <\/p>\n
The penetration of Airtel Africa\u2019s mobile money services continued to rise, helped by a 6.9% sequential rise in its mobile money customer base to 44.3 million in the fiscal third quarter. Quarterly revenue from the mobile money business too rose 9.7% sequentially to $269 million. The mobile money business ARPU, in turn, rose 4.5% on-quarter to $2.1.<\/p>\n
The data user base of Airtel Africa increased 8.2% on-quarter to 71.4 million. The overall customer base across the telco\u2019s 14 African markets rose 4.1% sequentially to 163.1 million. Data revenue increased 6.9% sequentially to $489 million in Q3FY25, helped by 4.2% higher consumption. <\/p>\n
Net debt in the fiscal third quarter was up 2.13% sequentially to $5.26 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bharti Airtel\u2019s Africa business reported an over 11-fold on-year jump in net profit to $169 million in the fiscal third quarter, on the back of a $94 million exceptional gain triggered by appreciation in key African currencies and a sharp fall in net finance costs. Airtel Africa\u2019s revenue also rose 2% on-year to nearly $1.27 billion, helped by decent customer additions, higher data usage and growth of its mobile money business. \u201cIn Q3\u201925, profit after tax benefitted from an exceptional gain of $94 million (net of tax) following the naira and Tanzanian shilling appreciation,\u201d Airtel Africa said in its earnings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}