Airtel Africa has reported a net profit of $192 million in the second quarter of 2021. The profits more than doubled year on year and rose over 35 percent sequentially.
According to the company, the revenue for the quarter to September 2021 rose 20 percent on-year and 4.31 percent sequentially to 1.16 billion dollars, the company said on Thursday.
“Strong double-digit constant currency revenue growth across all regions: Nigeria up 32.4 percent, East Africa up 25.8 percent, and Francophone Africa up 22.1 percent,” said the company in a statement.
Across all key services, for the company, Voice was up 19.7 percent, Data up 36.9 percent, and Mobile Money up 42.0 percent.
Profit after tax more than doubled to $335m, largely due to higher profit before tax which more than offset the associated increase in tax charges.
Basic EPS was 7.6 cents, an increase of 155.9%, as a result of higher profit. EPS before exceptional items increased to 7.5 cents from 3.0 cents in the previous period.
“Operating free cash flow was $853m, up 43.1%, and over the last 18 months, we have up-streamed more than $570m across our operating entities. Leverage ratio reduced to 1.5x from 2.2x,” said the company.
Customer base grew by 5.4% to 122.7 million, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 10.9%) and mobile money services (customer base up 19.0%). Customer base growth was affected by the new NIN/SIM registration regulations in Nigeria; excluding Nigeria, the customer base grew by 13.7%.
The board has declared an interim dividend of 2 cents per share (1.5 cents in H1’21) in line with an upgraded dividend policy. The new policy aims to grow the dividend annually by a mid to high-single-digit percentage from a new base of 5 cents per share for FY 2022, with a continued focus to further strengthen the balance sheet.