Airtel Africa Posts $412 Million Profit In FY19

Airtel Africa, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel that provides services in Africa, April 30 reported its first full-year profit at $412 million for the 2018-19 fiscal, helped by higher data consumption and Airtel Money penetration.

The company had posted a loss of $138 million for 2017-18.

Its revenue increased by 5.73 percent to $3,077 million in 2018-19 from $2,910 million a year ago, the company said.

“Increase in data and Airtel Money penetration led to faster net revenue growth,” Airtel Africa said in its quarterly report.

With profit-after-tax of $89 million including exceptional items in January-March 2019 period, Airtel Africa recorded profit in all the quarters of the reported fiscal.

The company had posted a loss of $33 million in the January-March period of 2018.

Revenue increased by 6 percent to $781 million during the reported quarter from $736 million in the corresponding period of 2017-18.

Data customers in Airtel Africa network increased by 5.1 million to 30 million as compared to 24.9 million in the previous year.

“Data customers now represent 30.4 percent of the total customer base, as compared to 27.9 percent in the previous year. The total MBs (megabytes) on the network grew by 65.3 percent to 392.6 billion MBs compared to 237.5 billion MBs in the previous year,” the report said.

Airtel Money revenue grew by close to 60 percent to $243.3 million in FY19 as compared to $152.4 million in 2017-18.

Airtel Africa capital expenditure during the year was $630 million mainly to enhance data capacities and network modernization, the report said.

As on Mar 31, 2019, the company had an aggregate customer base of 98.9 million as compared to 89.3 million in the corresponding quarter last year.―Money Control