Airtel Africa profit rises amid growing customer base

(Sharecast News) - Telecoms company Airtel Africa posted a jump in full-year profit on Wednesday amid growth in the customer base, with revenue up in all business segments.
In the year to the end of March 2020, pre-tax profit rose to $598m from $348m on revenue of $3.4bn, up from $3.08bn the year before, with the customer base 11.9% higher at 110.6 million.

Airtel said Nigeria and East Africa continued to deliver "strong" performances, while the performance in Francophone Africa continued to improve, with revenue up 4.1% in the fourth quarter of the year.

Revenue in the voice business was 5.2% higher, while the data and mobile money divisions saw a 39% and 37.2% increase, respectively.

Airtel recommended a final dividend of $3 cents per share, taking the total dividend to $6 cents per share.

Chief executive officer Raghunath Mandava said that more recently, the markets in which it operates have begun to feel the effects of Covid-19 and related government action to slow its spread.

"In Africa, the spread of the Covid-19 has lagged the rest of the world and, therefore, it is difficult to precisely forecast what the impact of this will be on customers and business," he said. "However, our performance during the month of April has been resilient as the business continued to deliver constant currency revenue growth, although at a lower rate."