- For the quarter ending June 30, 2024, Airtel Africa reported it purchased 21 million shares for a total consideration of $29 million in almost five months, following the share buy-back programme it commenced on March 1, 2024. The telco’s financial year begins on April 1.
- Per the operational report, the telco recorded an 8.6% increase in its customer base, reaching 155.4 million as data capacity across its network also increased by 33%.
- It also disclosed revenue of $1.16 billion, down 16.1%, but achieved a profit before tax of $74 million (+134%) and $31 million (+120.3%) after tax.
In February 2024, it revealed its intention to launch a share buy-back programme of up to $100m, over 12 months, starting March 1, 2024. The programme however still has up to seven months before it concludes.
Per the report, the increase in data capacity comes with the rollout of almost 3,000 sites and over 5,600 km of fibre.
In June, Airtel Kenya expanded its 5G network to cover 39 counties and 285 wards, with plans to launch an additional 1,000 sites by the end of the year, bringing the 5G sites to 1,690.
However, Safaricom, another telco in Kenya, has surpassed Airtel Kenya in deploying 5G, activating up to 803 5G sites, overtaking the 690 run by Airtel.
Additionally, Airtel users’ data usage increased by 24% with subscribers reaching 64 million, and subscribers for its mobile money service rose to 14.9%. Seeing this growth, the telco said it will continue to promote financial inclusion across its operating countries.
In March 2024, Airtel Africa was considering taking its mobile money unit public, eyeing an initial public offering that could value Airtel Money at over $4 billion. In June 2024, the number of mobile money subscribers in Kenya surged following Airtel's removal of withdrawal codes.
Meanwhile, in May 2024, Airtel Africa announced that its total customer base grew by 9% to 152.7 million, while its data customer base increased by 17.8%. Also, Airtel's mobile money customer base increased by 20.7% to 38 million.
On the financial results, Sunil Taldar, Airtel Africa CEO, said he is encouraged by the scale of the opportunity available across its markets in both the GSM and mobile money businesses.
“A key priority for us is to look for new opportunities to further grow our business, especially in the enterprise, fibre, and data centre businesses across our footprint in Africa.”
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