(Alliance News) - Airtel Africa PLC on Friday reported strong growth in its half-year pretax profit, but with revenue figures diverting notably in reported and constant currency terms.
In the six months ended 30 September, pretax profit for the FTSE 100-listed business jumped to USD178 million, up significantly from USD12 million the year prior, thanks to lower finance costs.
Revenue for the Africa-focused telecommunications firm fell 9.7% on a reported basis to USD2.37 billion from USD2.62 billion the previous year. By contrast, revenue at constant currency improved 20%, owed primarily to the continued depreciation of the Nigerian naira, with the firm stating the gap follows "the average currency devaluations between the periods, mainly in the Nigerian naira, the Malawian kwacha, the Zambian kwacha, and the Tanzanian shilling".
This follows on from Nigerian President Bola Tinubu removing Nigeria's foreign currency controls on the naira in June 2023, leading to a plunge in the currency value with USD1 today now buying NGN1641, more than doubling from NGN802 twelve months ago.
Airtel shares were trading down 4.9% at 109.60 pence on Friday morning in London.
The period saw positive customer growth with Airtel's customer base up 6.1% to 156.6 million and it expressed confidence going forwards in its cost savings plan which it said is already showing "initial green roots".
In-line with its progressive dividend policy Airtel declared a 9.2% increase in its interim dividend to 2.6 cents per share.
Airtel Chief Executive Sunil Taldar said: "We have already seen strong progress, with an acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the last quarter as demand for our services remains strong, reflected in the 48% growth in data volumes over the first half of the year, despite the challenging backdrop in some of our markets.
"We remain absolutely focussed on executing against our strategy to efficiently and effectively deliver essential services to improve the lives, communities and economies we serve. The growth opportunity across our markets remains compelling and we continue to focus on margin improvement."
By Christopher Ward, Alliance News reporter
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Airtel Africa (AAF)
