Afrigather Airtel Africa, a telecommunications agency with a presence in 14 African international locations, reported a 99% decline in earnings final yr after forex devaluation in a few of its greatest markets, together with Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, and Kenya.
Huge devaluations of Nigeria’s Naira and the Malawian Kwacha squeezed Airtel Africa’s margins and resulted in profits of $2 million for the yr. The Naira’s devaluation value Airtel $301 million. Excluding these impacts, revenue earlier than tax for the 9 months ended 31 December 2023 would have been $840 million.
The telco’s $2 million revenue is way from the $523 million revenue it recorded within the 9 months ended December 2022. The poor outcomes additionally dragged down Airtel’s income by 1.4% to $3.8 million from $3.9 million a yr in the past.
The corporate’s Group Chief Government Officer, Olusegun Ogunsanya, is undeterred by the outcomes.
“While additional forex devaluation, notably in Nigeria, has weighed on our reported monetary efficiency, it is not going to have an effect on the execution of our development plans,” he mentioned. Ogunsanya mentioned the group will concentrate on capital allocation priorities, enabling the agency to totally repay HoldCo debt when due in Might 2024, making certain the continued success of their steadiness sheet de-risking technique. The GCEO additionally mentioned they’d put money into new enterprise alternatives like their new knowledge centre enterprise, Nxtra by Airtel, which was launched in December. The board intends to launch a share buy-back programme of as much as $ 100 million, beginning early March 2024 over 12 months.
The telco’s monetary assertion additionally reported that its group cellular companies income grew by 18.6%, pushed by voice income development of 11.2% and knowledge income development of 28.5%. Cell cash income grew by 31.8% in fixed forex. Equally, its complete buyer base grew by 9.1% to 151.2 million because the penetration of cellular knowledge and cellular cash companies continued to rise, driving a 22.4% enhance in knowledge prospects to 62.7 million and a 19.5% enhance in cellular cash prospects to 34.3 million.
