Bharti Airtel\u2019s Africa unit reported $80 million in net profit, compared to a net loss of $91 million, a year ago, in the fiscal fourth quarter, driven by an increase in its customer base and higher data usage, which offset higher finance costs.<\/p>\n
But net profit for January-March period slumped 52.6% sequentially, reflecting a $21 million charge of derivative and foreign exchange losses, particularly due to the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira.<\/p>\n
Net profit was also dragged sequentially by a $16-million exceptional expense, as provision for settlement of a legal dispute with a former group subsidiary. <\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s quarterly revenue rose 23.2% on-year in constant currency to $1.131 billion, helped by tariff adjustments in Nigeria and easing currency headwinds.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn improving operating environment and focussed execution contributed to strong momentum in our financial results with constant currency revenue growth peaking at 23.2% in Q4\u201925. Part of this acceleration in the last quarter has also been driven by the Nigerian tariff adjustments,\u201d said Sunil Taldar, Airtel Africa CEO in a statement.<\/p>\n
The data user base of Airtel Africa rose 2.8% on-quarter and 14.1% on-year, to 73.4 million in Q4 FY2025. Data revenue increased 7% sequentially and 33.4% on-year, to $524 million, helped by a 3.3% increase in data consumption. <\/p>\n
The overall customer base across the telco\u2019s 14 African markets rose 1.8% on-quarter to 166.1 million.<\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s average revenue per user (ARPU) \u2014 a key performance metric \u2014 slipped 0.8% sequentially to $2.4, due to a 54.4% sequential fall in net customer additions.<\/p>\n
Taldar added that Airtel Africa is making significant progress in preparing for the Airtel Money IPO, anticipating a listing in the first half of 2026, subject to evolving market conditions.<\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s mobile money customer base grew to 44.6 million in the March quarter, from 44.3 million in the previous quarter. ARPU from mobile money services fell 3.7% to $2, while quarter revenue from the mobile money business grew 0.5% sequentially to $269 million. <\/p>\n
Airtel Africa\u2019s overall net finance cost (before exceptional items) for the March quarter was at $221 million, up 56% on-year and 1.8% sequentially, due to tower contract renewals and an increase in OpCo market debt.<\/p>\n
Finance costs also increased due to a shift of debt from foreign currency to local currency, which typically carries a higher average interest rate. The group has increased the proportion of local currency OpCo debt (excluding lease liabilities) to 93% as of March 31, 2025, up from 83% a year ago.<\/p>\n
Capex for the year ended March 31, 2025 at $670 million was 9% lower than a year ago, due to a deferral of data center investment. \u201cCapex guidance for the next year is between $725m and $750m as we continue to invest for future growth,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Accelerating revenue growth and cost controls led to an increase in quarterly operating margins by 200 basis points to 47.3% in Q4 2025 from 45.3% in Q1 2025. Operating margin in FY3Q was 46.9%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain focussed on further EBITDA margin improvements subject to macroeconomic stability. This, combined with our robust capital structure and disciplined capital allocation, puts us in a strong position to continue investing in network capacity to deliver continued growth,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bharti Airtel\u2019s Africa unit reported $80 million in net profit, compared to a net loss of $91 million, a year ago, in the fiscal fourth quarter, driven by an increase in its customer base and higher data usage, which offset higher finance costs. But net profit for January-March period slumped 52.6% sequentially, reflecting a $21 million charge of derivative and foreign exchange losses, particularly due to the devaluation of the Nigerian Naira. Net profit was also dragged sequentially by a $16-million exceptional expense, as provision for settlement of a legal dispute with a former group subsidiary. Airtel Africa\u2019s quarterly revenue […]<\/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-929144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929144","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=929144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}