Airtel Africa has reported a good start to the year, with constant currency revenue growth of 13 per cent despite impact from Covid-19 on the global telecom space.
It reported a rise in profit and revenue as it grew its customer base 11.8 per cent in the first quarter of its fiscal year to 111.5 million. Operating profit increased by 12.9 per cent to $210 million and revenue increased by 6.9 per cent to $851 million on-year.
Underlying EBITDA increased by 7.9 per cent to $375 million, with constant currency growth of14.6 per cent. Free cash flow was $96 million compared to $62 million in the same period last year. Earnings per share (EPS) before exceptional items was $1.0 cents and basic EPS was $1.1 cents.
Raghunath Mandava, chief executive officer, on the trading update: “During last quarter our business was impacted by the Covid-19pandemic, as restrictions on movements of people and ways of socializing were introduced to contain the spread of infection.
“In these unprecedented times, we have worked with governments, regulators, partners, and suppliers to keep customers and businesses connected as well as supporting the economies and communities. We focused on expanding and maintaining our network to ensure it could cope with increasing demand, we kept our distribution up and running by increasing the penetration of digital recharges and stock levels, and we expanded our home broadband solutions to ensure customers could work and access entertainment remotely.
“Covid-19 impacted customer usage pattern, particularly during the month of April, however, as some of these restrictions started to be lifted, customer usage trends in May and June returned to being broadly consistent with pre Covid-19 trends. The Group’s performance generally reflected these trends, with revenue growth accelerating in May, and we ended the quarter with 13 per cent revenue growth and 61bps of EBITDA margin expansion in constant currency.
“The business showed its resilience even during these unprecedented circumstances with all key business segments-voice, data and mobile money, and all regions-Nigeria, East Africa and Francophone Africa contributing to growth.
“During the quarter we also increased our support of the communities where we operate by providing financial support towards essential workers, free data for educational purposes and we worked together with governments to temporarily waive fees on certain mobile money transactions.
We also created an exciting partnership with UNICEF to provide children with access to remote learning and enable access to cash assistance for their families via mobile cash transfers. The outlook remains uncertain, particularly regarding a so called potential second wave of infections and the actions governments will decide to take in that event.
“However, these results are further evidence of the growth opportunities our markets offer and the effectiveness of our strategy to focus on winning customers, investing in our network and expanding our voice, data and mobile money businesses.”