BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
In nine months, Airtel Africa Plc, arguably Nigeria’s second largest mobile network grew its data revenue by 44.5%, making it the cash cow for the Company in the financial period ended December 31, 2021.
The Company whose shares are listed on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited disclosed that the growth was driven by data usage per customer to 4.0 GB per month (from 2.7 GB per month in the prior period).
“The expansion of our 4G network and increase in smartphone penetration supported this growth in data usage. Almost 90% of our total sites in Nigeria are now on 4G and there has been a 2% increase in smartphone penetration. This has resulted in data ARPU growth of 44.1%,” the Company said.
According to Airtel, data revenue accounted for 39.4% of total revenue in Nigeria in the nine-month period to 31 December 2021, up by 4.2% from the previous period. “In Q3’22, 43.4% of our data customer base were 4G users, contributing to 73.4% of total data usage. 4G data usage per customer reached 5.9 GB per month in Q3’22, from 4.8 GB per customer per month in Q3’21.”
Other revenue grew by 61.1%, with the main contribution coming from the growth in value added services revenue, led by airtime credit services. Underlying EBITDA was $758m, an increase of 24.7% in reported currency and a constant currency growth of 32.6%. The underlying EBITDA margin was 55.3%, an increase of 150 basis points in reported currency and 148 basis points in constant currency as a result of improvements in operational efficiency.
Operating free cash flow increased to $576m, up by 46.2%, due to the expansion of underlying EBITDA.
Segun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa Plc, speaking on the result, said “A strong third quarter has contributed to a pleasing nine-month financial performance across all key metrics. Operationally we have continued to execute on our network and distribution expansion plans, driving continued strong growth in ARPUs across voice, data and mobile money. We have also seen further improvement in our customer growth trends for the Group with Nigeria returning to strong customer growth after a period affected by the implementation of new ‘know your customer’ requirements, posting 1.9 million net additions in the third quarter, taking total Group customer additions to 3.1 million. I am particularly pleased with developments in Nigeria, where in November we received approval in principle for both a payment service bank (mobile money) licence and a super-agent licence.”
He noted that the Company is working closely with the Central Bank to meet all its conditions to receive the final operating licences and commence operations. “This will enable us to expand our digital financial products and reach the millions of Nigerians that do not have access to traditional financial services.”
“We continued to strengthen our balance sheet, with our leverage ratio now 1.4 times underlying EBITDA, thanks both to the continued increases in operating cash flow delivery and to the $550m of cash that has now been received from minority investments into our mobile money business. We will continue to invest in expanding and evolving our platform to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across Africa.
I continue to see huge growth potential across voice, data and mobile money and our strategy is delivering against this opportunity. Our sustained investments in both network and distribution expansion will help to ensure that both the communities and economies across our footprint will continue to benefit from increased and affordable connectivity and financial inclusion. We are committed to continue to improve the delivery of our services to our customers, with sustainability at the heart of our continued purpose to transform lives across Africa,”Ogunsanya added.
