Airtel Africa records $79 million profit in Q2

Airtel Africa, a unit of Bharti Airtel, has posted a net profit of $79 million for the July-September quarter against a loss of $13 million in the year-ago period.

Its profit was impacted by $151 million of exceptional derivative and foreign exchange losses (net of tax), arising from the further depreciation in the Nigerian Naira during the period, a company statement said.

Airtel Africa reported revenue of $2,370 million for second quarter in financial year 2025, a decline of 9.64% from $2,623 million in second quarter of financial year 2024.

“We have seen our cost optimisation programme already show initial green shoots, which combined with operational leverage, has contributed to an expansion of our Ebitda margins in for second quarter in financial year 2025 compared to the previous quarter.

“Foreign currency debt has fallen to just 11% of market debt at the end of September, which reflects the work we have undertaken to de-risk the balance sheet,” Airtel Africa CEO Sunil Taldar said.

Over the year, the company significantly reduced its foreign currency debt exposure, having paid $809 million of foreign currency debt, the statement said.

Its total customer base grew by 6.1% year-on-year to $156.6 million.

With smartphone penetration increasing by 5.3%, data usage per customer increased by 30.9% to 6.6 GB, it said.

“Data capacity across our network has increased by 20% with the rollout of over 2,800 sites and around 3,500 km of fibre,” the company said.

It recorded data ARPU growth of 13.5% and mobile money ARPU growth of 10.9% in constant currency.

“The scale of the opportunity across our markets remains substantial. A young and fast-growing population, combined with low levels of SIM and banking penetration on one hand and increasing smartphone and digital payment adoption across our existing base on the other, provides a unique opportunity to leverage our extensive infrastructure for sustained growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Taldar said. PTI