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Airtel Africa profit after tax more than doubled to USD 192 million in the second quarter ended September 30, but concerns around COVID-19 remain as sub-Saharan Africa continues to experience a third wave of the pandemic.
The company had posted a PAT of USD 88 million in the same period a year ago.
Airtel Africa revenue during the quarter grew 20.3 per cent to USD 1,160 million on a reported currency basis from USD 965 million in the corresponding quarter of 2020-21.
This was the 15th straight quarter when Airtel Africa posted double-digit revenue growth.
"The first half of last year, and especially first quarter, was impacted by the start of Covid, but even after adjusting for these effects, our revenue growth rates for the half-year for the group and all our service segments are ahead of our FY'21 revenue growth trends, and in reported terms, these are all in strong double digits," Segun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa said.
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He said the risks from COVID still remain, with sub-Saharan Africa continuing to experience a third wave of the pandemic.
"Governments continue to implement balanced measures of lockdowns and restrictions accordingly. But vaccination levels remain low, and we continue to monitor the situation for potential impacts on economies and consumers," Ogunsanya said.
Operationally Airtel Africa continued network modernisation and expansion, aligned with an extension of distribution capabilities that together contributed towards continued strong growth in ARPUs across voice, data and mobile money, he added.
The total customer base of Airtel Africa grew by 5.4 per cent to 122.7 million from 116.4 million in the second quarter of 2020-21 and average revenue per user grew by 12.4 per cent on a reported currency basis to USD 3.2 during the July-September 2021 quarter.
The data revenue of Airtel Africa during the reported quarter increased 36.4 per cent to USD 377 million from USD 283 million a year ago.
The company said that the growth in data revenue was largely driven by the expansion of the data customer base, and data usage growth.
"Our data customer base has grown 10.9 per cent year on year to 43.9 million, supported by continued expansion of our 4G network with 81.8 per cent of sites now on 4G, increased smartphone penetration, and an increase in data ARPU of 19.8 per cent," the company said.
Airtel Africa said that at the end of the quarter, 35.8 per cent of our total customer base were data customers and the quality of data customers also continues to improve, with 4G data customers now constituting 39.7 per cent of the data customer base.
Airtel Africa's voice revenue rose 11.6 per cent year-on-year to 578 million and mobile money revenue by 34.6 per cent to USD 135 million.
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