Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel Africa reports $514 million in profit in 9M 2021

Airtel Africa Plc, one of Africa’s largest telecom service providers, reported a profit of $514 million in the first nine months of its 2021 fiscal year. The surge in profit can be attributed to a rise in digital adoption on the continent, which resulted in double-digit growth across all key services.

In comparison to the previous year’s figures, the profit of the telecom company led by Indian billionaire businessman Sunil Bharti Mittal increased by 97.3 percent from $261 million to $514 million, owing to revenue growth and cost-cutting strategies implemented in the review under period.

According to the company’s recently released, unaudited nine-month report, revenue increased by 22.5 percent from $2.85 billion in 2020 to $3.49 billion, driven by a 16.1-percent increase in voice revenue and a 37.2-percent increase in data and mobile money revenue above $1.13 billion.

The company’s strong revenue growth was aided by a 5.8-percent increase in its customer base to 125.8 million as a result of stronger penetration across mobile data and mobile money services.

Regulations slowed revenue growth through its services in Nigeria, but customer growth resumed in the third quarter. Excluding Nigeria, its customer base grew by 12 percent.

While commenting on the report, Airtel Africa CEO Segun Ogunsanya said the impressive performance delivered by the telecom company in 2021 was boosted by a strong performance in the third quarter of its 2021 fiscal period, combined with the management team’s strategy, which led to strong growth in average revenue per user across voice, data and mobile money.

“We have also seen further improvement in the group’s customer growth trends, with Nigeria returning to strong customer growth after a period impacted by the implementation of new ‘know your customer’ requirements, posting 1.9 million net additions in the third quarter, bringing total group customer additions to 3.1 million,” he said.

Airtel Africa is a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 African countries in East, Central and West Africa.

The leading telecom services provider is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, a telecom company founded by Mittal, a $12-billion Indian businessman.

The billionaire owns 127,147,531 ordinary shares in the telecom behemoth, giving him an indirect 3.38-percent stake in the company.

As of press time, Airtel Africa shares were trading at N1,398 ($3.36) on the local exchange, as investors rushed to buy the company’s stock in response to a surge in earnings in the first nine months of its fiscal year 2021.

Its market capitalization is presently valued at N5.25 trillion ($12.63 billion), making it the most capitalized company on the Nigerian Exchange.