Airtel Africa Regulatory News (AAF)

Airtel Africa plc

Results for the year ended 31 March 2022

11 May 2022

Full-year highlights

· Reported revenue grew by 20.6% for the year, to $4,714m, and 17.8% for Q4. Constant currency underlying revenue grew 23.3% for the year and 19.1% in Q4.

· Constant currency underlying revenue growth was strong in all regions: Nigeria up 27.7%, East Africa up 22.7% and Francophone Africa up 17.2%; and across all key services, with revenue in Voice up 15.4%, Data up 34.6% and Mobile Money up 34.9%.

· Underlying EBITDA of $2,311m, grew by 29.0% in reported currency.

· Underlying EBITDA margin of 49.0%, increased by 294 basis points.

· Operating profit grew by 37.2% to $1,535m in reported currency.

· Profit after tax grew by 82.0% to $755m.

· Basic EPS of 16.8 cents, an increase of 86.5%. EPS before exceptional items of 16.0 cents (FY'21: 8.2 cents).

· Operating free cash flow of $1,655m, up 40.5%, with net cash generated from operating activities up 20.7% to $2,011m. Over the last twelve months the business has repaid nearly $1.4bn of debt at HoldCo as a result of strong cash upstreaming across its OpCos and proceeds from minority investments in mobile money and tower sales.

· Leverage ratio improved to 1.3x from 2.0x in the prior year, with $1bn of debt now held at HoldCo (FY'21: $2.4bn).

· Customer base of 128.4 million, up 8.7%, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 15.2%) and mobile money services (customer base up 20.7%). NIN/SIM regulations in Nigeria impacted customer growth in H1, but then returned to strong growth, adding 4 million customers in Nigeria during H2'22.

· Board recommends a final dividend of 3 cents per share, making total FY'22 dividends 5 cents per share (FY'21: 4 cents).

(1) Underlying revenue excludes a one-time exceptional revenue of $20m relating to a settlement in Niger in the prior year.

(2) Alternative performance measures (APM) are described on page 51.

Segun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer, on the trading update:

"This is another strong set of results for Airtel Africa, demonstrating our solid execution as we continue to enrich the lives of a growing number of people through leveraging the sizeable opportunity to promote digital and financial inclusion across our markets.

We have delivered strong double-digit growth in revenues across all our regions and all our key services, with improving margins driven by strong cost control, and expanding cash generation which is enabling us to continue to invest in our network and services and expand our distribution, as well as strengthening our balance sheet and increasing our returns to shareholders. We are connecting more customers in new and existing coverage areas and driving usage levels and ARPUs to new highs.

We have successfully executed on a number of strategic initiatives in the year, with tower sales completed in four countries, $550m of minority investments secured for our mobile money business and a successful buyout of minorities in our Nigerian operation. Our receipt last month of a full PSB licence in Nigeria will help us to accelerate financial inclusion in the territory and drive our mobile money business even faster.

While the fundamentals of our six-pillar growth strategy remain unchanged, we are looking to accelerate our performance through a greater focus on digitalisation and we have underpinned our strategic pillars with our sustainability ambition.

I am particularly proud of the progress we have made in articulating our sustainability strategy this year as well as the partnership we announced with UNICEF to help drive and support educational programmes in our territories. I very much look forward to us publishing both our pathway to net zero and our first full sustainability report later in the year.

Turning to the outlook, long-term opportunities for us remain attractive. While mindful of currency devaluation and repatriation risks, we continue to work actively to mitigate all our material risks and to deliver value for all our stakeholders. There are increasing challenges from global inflationary pressures, but we continue to target revenue growth ahead of the market and moderate margin expansion."

Airtel Africa plc ("Airtel Africa" or "Group") annual financial information contained in this report is drawn from Airtel Africa plc's audited annual consolidated financial statements for the years ended 31 March 2022 and 31 March 2021, prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and approved for use in the United Kingdom (UK) by the UK Accounting Standards Endorsement Board (UKEB). Quarterly information is drawn from unaudited IAS 34 financials of respective periods. Comparative period figures have been regrouped/ reclassified to conform with current year grouping/ classification.

About Airtel Africa

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

Airtel Africa offers an integrated suite of telecoms solutions to its subscribers, including mobile voice and data services as well as mobile money services, both nationally and internationally. We aim to continue providing a simple and intuitive customer experience through streamlined customer journeys.

Enquiries

Conference call

Management will host an analyst and investor presentation and conference call at 12:00pm UK time (BST), on Wednesday 11 May 2022, including a Question and Answer session.

To receive an invitation with the dial in numbers to participate in the event, please register beforehand using the following link:

https://services.choruscall.za.com/DiamondPassRegistration/register?confirmationNumber=1370750&linkSecurityString=2d5d99c98

Key financial information

(1) Revenue includes intra-segment eliminations of $129m for the year ended 31 March 2022 and $100m for the prior year. And it also excludes one-time exceptional revenue of $20m relating to a settlement in Niger in the year ended 31 March 2021.

(2) Mobile money revenue post intra-segment eliminations with mobile services was $424m for the year ended 31 March 2022, and $301m for the prior year.

(3) Underlying EBITDA includes other income of $10m for the year ended 31 March 2022, and $11m for the prior year.

(4) Operating exceptional items of $32m in the year ended 31 March 2022 consists of a $12m provision for expected settlement of a contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party and $20m costs of agreeing historical spectrum fees in one of the Group's subsidiaries. The prior year operating exceptional items includes exceptional revenue relating to a one-time settlement in Niger for $20m, partially offset by one-off costs of $6m in Francophone Africa.

(5) Net finance costs in the year ended 31 March 2022 excludes a one-off cost of $19m on prepayment of $505m bonds in March 2022.

(6) Non-operating exceptional items in the year ended 31 March 2022 include a gain of $111m on the sale of telecommunication tower assets in the Group's subsidiaries in Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar, and Rwanda, partially offset by costs of $19m on prepayment of $505m of bonds.

Financial review for the year ended 31 March 2022

We have recorded another strong set of results that demonstrate the effective execution of our strategy, with strong performance across our regional segments and key services. Reported revenue grew by 20.6%.

Underlying revenue in constant currency grew by 23.3%. Revenue in Nigeria grew by 27.7%, in East Africa by 22.7% and in Francophone Africa by 17.2% in constant currency. We have delivered strong double-digit growth across all our key services: voice revenue grew by 15.4%, data revenue grew by 34.6%, mobile money revenue grew by 34.9%, and other revenue by 19.9%. Growth in other revenues was marginally impacted in Q4'22 from the loss of c.$6m revenues from tower sharing related to tower sales completed in the year. Mobile services revenue grew by 22.0% in constant currency (19.6% in reported currency) and mobile money services revenue grew by 34.9% (37.9% in reported currency). Revenue growth for the year benefited from a weakened performance in the first quarter of the prior year during the peak period of Covid-19 restrictions across the region.

Net finance costs were broadly flat. The increase in tax charges of $187m was due to higher operating profits and withholding tax on dividends by subsidiaries, with the prior year also benefitting from $36m deferred tax credit recognition.

Basic EPS improved to 16.8 cents while EPS before exceptional items improved to 16.0 cents, with higher profits more than offsetting the associated increased tax charges, and higher non-controlling interests due to higher profit contributions in OpCos with minority shareholdings and new minority shareholdings in Airtel Money, partially offset by lower minority interests in Airtel Nigeria as a result of the successful share buy-back.

Leverage improved to 1.3x from 2.0x in the prior year, largely driven by increased cash generation, expansion of underlying EBITDA and proceeds from Airtel Money investments. Our balance sheet has also been further de-risked by continued localisation of our debt into the OpCos and material debt reduction in HoldCo.

GAAP measures

Revenue

Reported revenue grew by 20.6% to $4,714m. The prior year benefited from one-time exceptional revenue of $20m relating to a settlement in Niger. Excluding this, revenue grew by 21.3% in reported currency and by 23.3% in constant currency. Constant currency growth of 23.3% was partially offset by currency devaluations, mainly in the Nigerian naira (5.6%) and the Malawian kwacha (7.2%), in turn partially offset by appreciation in the Ugandan shilling (4.1%) and Zambian kwacha (4.4%). Revenue growth for the year benefited from a weakened performance in the first quarter of the prior year during the peak period of Covid-19 restrictions across the region.

Operating profit

Operating profit grew by 37.2% to $1,535m in reported currency as a result of strong revenue growth and improvements in operating efficiency across all our regions. Operating profit included a one-time cost of $32m consisting of a $12m provision for expected settlement of a contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party, and $20m costs relating to an agreement on historical spectrum fees in one of the Group's subsidiaries. This compared to the prior year which included a gain of $20m for a one-time settlement in Niger, which was partially offset by one-off costs of $6m in Francophone Africa. Excluding exceptional items, operating profit grew by 41.9%.

Net finance costs

Net finance costs were broadly flat, as lower foreign exchange and derivative losses, higher interest income and a one-time $12m gain in other finance charges as a result of the reversal of an interest provision in one of our operating entities were offset by a one-off cost of $19m for the applicable premium paid on the early repayment of the $505m bonds in March 2022. Additionally, interest costs were also broadly flat as lower interest costs on our reduced market debt were offset by an increase in interest costs on lease liabilities.

The Group effective interest rate increased to 5.6% compared to 4.9%, largely driven by repayment of the EUR750m bond in May 2021, which carried a lower-than-average coupon, and due to higher local currency debt at the OpCo level. In line with our strategy to continue to reduce foreign currency debt at HoldCo, we also repaid $505m bonds in March 2022, one year earlier than their March 2023 redemption date. One-off costs of $19m, including applicable premium, have been recorded under non-operating exceptional items, while the Group will save an aggregate of c.$26m on interest payments from the early redemption.

Taxation

Total tax charges were $469m, an increase of $187m, driven by higher operating profit and withholding tax on dividends by subsidiaries. The prior year also benefited from the recognition of a deferred tax credit of $36m in Tanzania.

Profit after tax

Profit after tax increased by 82.0% to $755m. This increase was mainly led by higher operating profits and stable net finance costs which more than offset the associated increase in tax charges. Exceptional gains were also $12m higher than the prior year.

Basic EPS

Basic EPS climbed to 16.8 cents, an improvement of 7.8 cents (+86.5%) from 9.0 cents in the prior year. This increase was mainly due to higher operating profits which more than offset increased tax charges and higher non-controlling interests (due to higher profit contributions in OpCos with minority shareholdings, new minority shareholdings in Airtel Money partially offset by lower minority interests in Airtel Nigeria as a result of the successful share buy-back).

Net cash generated from operating activities

Net cash generated from operating activities was $2,011m, an increase of 20.7% from $1,666m in the prior period. The increase was largely driven by higher profit before tax of $527m, which was partially offset by higher tax payments on the increased profits and withholding tax on dividends by subsidiaries. Over the last twelve months the business has repaid nearly $1.4bn of debt at HoldCo as a result of strong cash upstreaming across its OpCos and proceeds from minority investments in mobile money and tower sales.

Alternative performance measures[1]

Underlying revenue

Underlying revenue in constant currency grew by 23.3%, driven by both customer base growth of 8.7% and ARPU growth of 15.4%. The slowdown in customer base growth was due to the introduction of new SIM registration regulations in Nigeria. Excluding Nigeria, the customer base grew by 10.2%. In Nigeria, our customer base returned to growth in the second half of the year, adding a net 2.4 million customers for the full year. At the end of the year our total customer base was 128.4 million, an increase of 10.2 million. ARPU growth of 15.4% was driven by all our key services: with data contributing 7.7%, voice contributing 4.3%, mobile money contributing 2.7%, and the balance coming from other revenue, which was marginally impacted in Q4 from the loss of tower sharing revenues relating to towers sold during the year.

Revenue growth was recorded across all our regions and key services. Underlying revenue in Nigeria grew by 27.7%, in East Africa by 22.7%, and in Francophone Africa by 17.2%. Voice revenue grew by 15.4%, data revenue grew by 34.6% and mobile money revenue grew by 34.9% in constant currency.

Underlying EBITDA

Underlying EBITDA was $2,311m, an increase of 29.0% in reported currency and of 31.2% in constant currency. Growth in underlying EBITDA was led by revenue growth and supported by improved operating efficiencies. The underlying EBITDA margin improved by 294 basis points in reported currency to 49.0%.

Foreign exchange had an adverse impact of $58m on revenue, and $26m on underlying EBITDA, as a result of devaluations of the Nigerian naira and the Malawian kwacha, in turn partially offset by appreciations of both the Ugandan shilling and the Zambian kwacha.

With respect to currency devaluation sensitivity, on a 12-month basis, a 1% currency devaluation across all currencies in our OpCos would have a negative impact of $43m on revenues, $26m on underlying EBITDA and $21m on finance costs. Our largest exposure is to the Nigerian naira, for which a 1% devaluation would have a negative impact of $18m on revenues, $11m on underlying EBITDA and $7m on finance costs.

Tax

The effective tax rate was 39.0% compared to 43.2% in the prior period, largely due to profit mix changes amongst the OpCos. The effective tax rate is higher than the weighted average statutory corporate tax rate of approximately 33%, largely due to the profit mix between various OpCos and withholding taxes on dividends by subsidiaries.

Exceptional items

Operating exceptional items of $32m in the year ended 31 March 2022 consists of a $12m provision for expected settlement of a contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party and $20m costs of agreeing historical spectrum fees in one of the Group's subsidiaries. The prior period operating exceptional items includes exceptional revenue on account of a one-time settlement in Niger amounting to $20m, partially offset by a one-off cost of $6m in Francophone Africa.

Non-operating exceptional items in the year ended 31 March 2022 include a gain of $111m on the sale of telecommunications tower assets in the Group's subsidiaries in Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar, and Rwanda, partially offset by one-off costs of $19m including applicable premium paid on the early repayment of $505m bonds in March 2022.

Exceptional tax benefit of $2m recognised in the year mainly relate to the provision for the contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party, and the $36m in the prior year relates to deferred tax credit recognition in Tanzania.

EPS before exceptional items

EPS before exceptional items almost doubled to 16.0 cents, up by 96.0% (+7.8 cents) from 8.2 cents in the prior year. This increase was mainly due to higher operating profits which more than offset the increased tax charges and higher non-controlling interests (due to higher profit contributions in OpCos with minority shareholdings, new minority shareholdings in Airtel Money partially offset by lower minority interests in Airtel Nigeria as a result of the successful share buy-back).

Operating free cash flow

Operating free cash flow increased by 40.5% to $1,655m, as higher underlying EBITDA more than offset increased capital expenditure. Capital expenditure in the prior year was slightly lower due to logistical challenges as a result of the pandemic.

Leverage

Leverage (net debt to underlying EBITDA) improved to 1.3x at 31 March 2022, from 2.0x at 31 March 2021, largely driven by increased cash generation, expansion in underlying EBITDA and receipts of $550m from mobile money minority investments. Our balance sheet continued to be de-risked through a reduction of HoldCo debt (now $1bn, down from $2.4bn in the prior year) and increased localisation of our debt into the OpCos, such that our gross OpCo debt of $2,921m (including lease obligations) is now significantly higher than our HoldCo debt of $1,000m.

Other significant updates

Full payment service bank licence in Nigeria

In April 2022, Airtel Africa's subsidiary SMARTCASH Payment Service Bank Limited ('Smartcash') was granted final approval to operate a payment service bank ('PSB') business in Nigeria.

The PSB licence is required for Airtel to provide mobile financial services in Nigeria, such as accepting cash deposits and carrying out payments and remittances, issuing debit and prepaid cards, operating electronic wallets and rendering other financial services.

Full super-agent licence in Nigeria

On 14 November 2021, Airtel Africa's subsidiary Airtel Mobile Commerce Nigeria Ltd was granted approval in principle by the Central Bank of Nigeria to operate as a super-agent in Nigeria. This was subsequently upgraded to approval for a full super-agent licence in April 2022.

Under the super-agent licence, we are able to create an agent network that can service the customers of licensed Nigerian banks, payment service banks and licenced mobile money operators in Nigeria.

Early Bond redemption

In March 2022, the Group confirmed that it had completed the early repayment of its $505m 5.125% Guaranteed Senior Notes, originally due in March 2023, using cash balances available at Group level.

Settlement included all outstanding accrued interest up to the redemption date of 7 March 2022. One-off costs of $19m, including applicable premium, have been recorded under non-operating exceptional items, while the Group will save an aggregate of c.$26m on interest payments from early redemption.

Since the time of the IPO in June 2019, Airtel Africa has successfully pursued a strategy of strengthening its balance sheet through both deleveraging and reducing its US dollar debt exposure. Over this period the Group has reduced its USD HoldCo debt by c.$1.7bn and improved its leverage ratio to 1.3x net debt to underlying EBITDA at 31 March 2022. Following this early repayment of senior notes, the Group now has only $1bn of bonds remaining at HoldCo level, due in May 2024.

Completion of Airtel Nigeria minority buyout offer

On 2 December 2021, further to the buyout offer announcement on 4 October 2021, Airtel Africa announced the completion of the minority shareholding buyback of Airtel Networks Limited ('Airtel Nigeria'), a subsidiary of Airtel Africa plc and a leading provider of telecommunication services in Nigeria.

The purchase consideration for the 8.22% minority shareholdings acquired under the buyback was NGN 67.6bn, equivalent to $163m, including directly attributable transaction costs.

NIN - SIM linkage registration rules in Nigeria

Following a directive issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on 7 December 2020 to all Nigerian telecom operators, Airtel Nigeria has been working with the government to ensure that all our subscribers provide their valid National Identification Numbers (NINs) to update SIM registration records. To complete the registration process, we must link the NIN information received with the SIM of the respective subscribers and share the same with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

The original regulatory directive set an initial deadline for customers to register (link) their NIN with their SIM of 30 December 2020. This was subsequently moved several times, with the last deadline being 31 March 2022. Airtel Nigeria was subsequently notified that with effect from 4 April 2022, all SIMs that have not been linked to a NIN were to be placed on 'receive only' status, meaning all their outgoing calls have been barred with immediate effect.

Subscribers of such lines can still link their SIMs to their NINs in order that these restrictions can be lifted. Customers have therefore been given a final opportunity to fully comply with the latest registration requirements.

We have made significant progress on capturing the NINs of our customers and building the database in collaboration with the NIMC. As at the end of April 2022, we have collated NIN information for 35.9 million active customers. Outgoing voice revenues for those active subscribers who have not yet linked their NIN with their SIM amounts to around 7% of total revenues from Nigeria, and around 3% of total revenues for the Group. However, our experience of adopting similar procedures in other countries suggests that SIM registration is accelerated, and some SIM consolidation is likely to occur in response to implementation, potentially reducing any financial impact. As at the end of the year, Airtel Nigeria had an active customer base of 44.4 million and posted revenue of $1,878m.

We continue to work closely with the regulator and impacted customers to help them to comply with the registration requirements, making every effort to minimise disruption and ensure affected customers can continue to benefit from full-service connectivity as soon as possible; in line with our aim to drive increased connectivity and digital inclusion across Nigeria.

Kenya spectrum licences

On 7 March 2022, the Group announced that its Kenya subsidiary, Airtel Kenya Networks Limited ('Airtel Kenya'), had entered into agreements with the Communications Authority of Kenya regarding its operating and spectrum licences, and received approval for the replacement of its temporary licence with a ten-year frequency licence for 2x10 MHz of spectrum in the 2100 MHz band, as follows:

· In respect of agreements regarding 2015-2025 operating and spectrum licences, Airtel Kenya will pay a total of c.$20m in four instalments over the next three years.

· In respect of the 2x10 MHz licence, 2022-2032, Airtel Kenya has agreed and paid for a ten-year licence for $10m.

Airtel Kenya is one of the Group's largest markets by revenue, and from FY'19 to FY'22 grew revenues by 22.2% CAGR. This $30m investment reflects our continued confidence in the tremendous opportunity inherent in the Kenya market.

Uganda listing obligation

Under Article 16 of Uganda's National Telecom Operator ('NTO') licence, Airtel Uganda limited is obliged to comply with the sector policy, regulations and guidelines requiring the listing of part of its shares on the Uganda Stock Exchange. The current Uganda Communications (Fees & Fines) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, creates a public listing obligation for all NTO licensees, and specifies that 20% of the shares of the operator must be listed within two years of the date of the effective date of the licence. Currently, this imposes a listing requirement by 15 December 2022 on Airtel Uganda. On 5th April 2022 we applied to the Uganda Communications Commission for an extension on the deadline for a period of one year.

Tower sales

On 25 March 2022 and 3 November 2021, Airtel Africa announced the first closings of transactions to sell its telecommunications tower companies in Malawi and Madagascar respectively, to Helios Towers plc, a leading independent telecommunications infrastructure company in Africa.

On 5 January 2022, Airtel Africa announced the first closing of the transaction to sell its telecommunications tower assets in Tanzania to a joint venture company owned by a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBA Communications Corporation, a leading global independent owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure, as majority owner, and by Paradigm Infrastructure Limited, a UK company focused on developing, owning and operating shared passive wireless infrastructure in selected growth markets.

The gross considerations for these transactions are $55m in Malawi, $52m in Madagascar, and $177m in Tanzania. Loss of tower sharing revenue as a result of the sale of these towers amounted to $29m per annum. As a result of the tower sales across our OpCos the Group recorded a gain of $111m.

Under the terms of these tower transactions, Airtel Africa's subsidiaries in the respective countries will continue to develop, maintain and operate its equipment on the towers under separate lease arrangements with the purchaser.

In March 2021, the Group also announced memorandum of understanding arrangements with Helios Towers for the potential sale of its tower assets in Chad and Gabon. In February 2022, Airtel Africa announced that it had agreed an extension to their memorandum of understanding arrangement with Helios Towers in Gabon, with completion still subject to Helios Towers obtaining a passive infrastructure licence. The memorandum of understanding arrangement relating to tower assets in Chad expired in February 2022, and Airtel Africa and Helios Towers have mutually agreed that this would not be renewed.

Strategic investments in our mobile money business

Following earlier similar announcements of investments in our mobile money business of $200m by TPG's The Rise Fund and $100m by Mastercard (made on 18 March 2021 and 1 April 2021 respectively) in July 2021, Airtel Africa signed agreements with Qatar Holding LLC, an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority ('QIA'), regarding their investment of $200m in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV ('AMC BV'), a subsidiary of Airtel Africa plc. AMC BV is the holding company for several of Airtel Africa's mobile money operations; and ultimately is intended to own and operate the mobile money businesses across all of Airtel Africa's 14 operating countries.

On 2 August 2021 and 20 August 2021 Airtel Africa announced first closings relating to the Airtel Money minority investment transactions with TPG's The Rise Fund and Mastercard, and subsequently with Qatar Holding LLC respectively. Upon first closings, The Rise Fund, Mastercard and QIA invested $150m, $75m and $150m respectively in a secondary purchase of shares in AMC BV from a subsidiary of Airtel Africa, and both QIA and TPG each appointed a director to the board of AMC BV.

In November 2021, Airtel Africa announced second closings relating to these Airtel Money minority investment transactions, with a further $50m, $25m and $50m invested into AMC BV by The Rise Fund, Mastercard and QIA respectively.

In December 2021, Airtel Africa announced the introduction of Chimera Investment LLC as an additional investor in AMC BV through a $50m secondary purchase of shares from a subsidiary of Airtel Africa plc. Chimera Investment LLC (through its subsidiary Chimetech Holding Ltd.) now holds minority stakes in AMC BV alongside the other minority investors, with Airtel Africa continuing to hold the majority stake.

These transactions are a continuation of the Group's pursuit of strategic asset monetisation and investment opportunities, and it is the aim of Airtel Africa to explore the potential listing of the mobile money business within four years from first closing.

Airtel Africa has now received a total of $550m cumulative proceeds from minority stake sales in Airtel Money from the four investors. As previously reported, the proceeds from these secondary stake sale transactions were used for repayment of Group debt and for investment in network and sales infrastructure in the respective operating countries.

Launch of sustainability strategy

Within our Full Year Results announcement in May 2021, we highlighted that we would publish the measurable medium to long-term sustainability goals we set ourselves. In the first six months of this financial year, we identified the programmes needed, along with key milestones towards these goals. We also conducted a consultation progress with our stakeholders to gather feedback and further inform our sustainability strategy.

In October 2021, Airtel Africa launched an ambitious sustainability strategy that underpins our well-established corporate purpose of 'Transforming Lives.' The strategy demonstrates our commitment to developing the infrastructure and services that will drive both digital and financial inclusion for people across Africa and provides a framework to contribute to six of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals ('SDGs') where we believe we can have the biggest impact. These are SDG 4: Delivering quality education;SDG 5: Gender equality; SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth; SDG 9: Industry innovation and infrastructure; SDG 10: Reduced inequalities; and SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production.

The launch of our sustainability strategy builds upon the Group's sustainability framework, announced with the FY'21 results, with its four key pillars of 'Our business', 'Our people', 'Our communities' and 'Our environment', and the strong foundations of the work we are already doing at a Group level and across all our local operations. The new sustainability strategy covers every aspect of our business activities, and has environmental, social and governance criteria at its core.

The sustainability strategy includes nine goals and commitments, with corresponding programmes that address the business' material topics (identified through an extensive consultation at the beginning of the year) and enable the Group to continue delivering sustainable growth and uphold the best governance standards:

· Data security goal: Establish industry-leading data security for our customers; through investments in technology and expertise, updated processes and consumer awareness - with focus areas around confidentiality, integrity and availability.

· Service quality goal: Provide underserved communities with access to reliable networks and connectivity; through the rollout of new infrastructure and technology, improved fibre connectivity and capacity - with focus areas on service accessibility, delivery and reliability.

· Supply chain goal: Ensure all our suppliers are aligned with our sustainability agenda; through programmes to increase supplier disclosure and audit ESG performance - with focus areas on enhanced supplier due diligence and ongoing ESG compliance.

· Commitments to our people: with our ambition to provide rewarding employment opportunities and to achieve genuine diversity and inclusion at all levels across the business through four key commitments:

o  Delivering equality in our workforce; through recruitment and programmes to provide training and advancement for everyone regardless of gender, nationality or disability;

o  Providing best practice training and development; through upskilling and reskilling initiatives to ensure they can succeed in their future careers. And through supporting female entrepreneurs through training and increasing women's participation in the technology and engineering sectors;

o  Providing the highest standards of health and safety for our employees and contractors; through the introduction of a best practice social and health and safety management system, improved policies and full compliance with all legislation and regulation; and,

o  Maintaining the highest levels of employee engagement; through the introduction of additional channels that provide every one of our people with a voice.

· Digital inclusion goal: significantly improve digital Inclusion across Africa; by driving the penetration of mobile, smartphones and home broadband in rural areas through the provision of retail and support services.

· Financial inclusion goal: significantly increase financial inclusion in Africa, with particular support for women; through the development of affordable financial products to meet the needs of the un- and under-banked, a reliable service and financial confidence and literacy.

· Access to education goal: helping transform the lives of over one million children through improving access to education - with programmes around connectivity, the provision of zero-rated education content under a five-year UNICEF partnership, connecting 1,400 schools to the internet by 2027, and the adoption and support of schools in all our markets.

· Greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal: Our ambition is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas ('GHG') emissions ahead of the 2050 deadline set out in the Paris Agreement. To do this we must fully identify, measure and reduce our GHG emissions which can only be achieved in partnership with our peers and the wider industry. We will establish and launch a sector leading and credible decarbonisation pathway in 2022, ahead of the publication of our first Sustainability Report. In January 2022, we have engaged with the Carbon Trust for their advice and assistance with several aspects of our Greenhouse gas emissions measurement, management and reporting.

· Environmental stewardship: Eliminate hazardous waste from our operations, significantly reduce our non-hazardous waste and minimise our water consumption; with programmes to replace damaging materials, expand recycling schemes and build employees' awareness around the protection of our natural resources.

Partnership with UNICEF

On 1 November 2021, Airtel Africa and UNICEF announced a five-year pan-African partnership to help accelerate the roll-out of digital learning through connecting schools to the internet and ensuring free access to learning platforms across 13 countries. By providing equal access to quality digital learning, particularly for the most vulnerable children, the partnership will help to ensure that every child reaches their full potential. 

Airtel Africa is the first African private sector partner to make a multimillion-dollar commitment to 'Reimagine Education', a global initiative launched by UNICEF in 2020 calling for public and private sector investment in digital learning as an essential service for every child and young person across the globe. This initiative aims to give children a chance to catch up on their learning needs amid the ongoing global pandemic.

Airtel Africa's financial and in-kind contribution for this partnership is $57m over five years to 2027. The programme will call on technology and expertise, in addition to direct financial support to connect schools and communities to the internet and enable free access to online educational content for students. It will also provide vital data insights to inform UNICEF's work to scale-up digital learning and help ensure it is sustainable and meets students' needs across Africa.

The Airtel Africa and UNICEF pan-African partnership will benefit students in Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Dividend policy

In October 2021, the Board approved an upgrade to the progressive dividend policy as a result of continued strong business performance and significant progress made in reducing the leverage ratio. The new policy aims to grow the dividend annually by a mid to high-single digit percentage from a new base of 5 cents per share for FY'22, with a continued focus to further strengthen the balance sheet.

The Board recommends a final dividend of 3 cents per share, making total FY'22 dividends 5 cents per share including the interim dividend of 2 cents per share, and in line with this upgraded dividend policy.

Covid update

The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to a rapid acceleration of already existing macro trends across the countries where we operate, with people, businesses and governments seeking access to more and better connectivity and improved financial inclusion. These challenging times have shown that the telecoms industry is a key and essential service for these economies, allowing customers to work remotely, reduce their travel, keep connected and have access to affordable entertainment and financial services.

Covid-19 presented significant challenges to the business, particularly during the initial phase of the pandemic in Q1 last year, when mobile money and mobile services growth both slowed. However, the actions taken by the Board at that time enabled the continued execution of our strategy, including meeting increased customer demand for data, mobile money and mobile services.

Through multiple lockdowns and during times of national crisis our people have kept our distribution channels available and our networks fully operational. Our business partners have similarly continued to deliver their services despite numerous logistical challenges, and governments and regulators have continued to support the industry and helped facilitate our continued support to the economies of the countries and the communities we serve.

Several times through the pandemic, the governments in the countries where we operate have acted swiftly to implement and enforce restrictions on the movement of people to prevent contagion. These swift actions, along with low population density and relatively youthful population demographics, less frequent travel, and local experience in dealing with contagious diseases, have resulted in generally lower infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa relative to some other regions. Around the world the vaccination effort is well under way, with a significant easing of social distancing rules and travel restrictions, although Africa lags most developed economies in attaining full vaccination cover.

Despite the resilience demonstrated by our business during the last two years, we are constantly monitoring how the situation is evolving to identify key risks and to put in place adequate mitigation plans to minimise any potential disruptions.

The Group will continue to focus on ensuring the safety of our employees, our outsourced partners and our customers; ensuring that our network and distribution channels remain fully operational and available; ensuring that our customers continue to have access to financial services and ensuring that at Group level we are in the right financial position to meet our financial obligations at all times.

New shareholding requirements in Kenya

On 9 April 2021, the Minister for ICT in Kenya published an amendment to the National Information Communications and Technology (ICT) Policy Guidelines, 2020 (ICT Policy). The ICT Policy amendment will affect Airtel Africa's Kenya business as follows:

· Airtel Networks Kenya Limited, which currently holds an indefinite exemption from the Minister for ICT, dated 20 March 2013, has three years with effect from 9 April 2021 to comply with the requirement to have a 30% local shareholding.

· Airtel Money Kenya Limited, which holds a Content Service Provider Licence from the Communications Authority of Kenya, with effect from November 2020, has three years from the date of the licence to comply with the requirement to have a 30% local shareholding.

Under the amended ICT policy, a licensee may apply to the ICT Minister for an extension of time to comply with the requirement, or to obtain an exemption.

Appointment of new CEO, and other Board appointments and changes

On 29 April 2021, Airtel Africa announced that Olusegun 'Segun' Ogunsanya, managing director and chief executive officer Airtel Nigeria was to succeed Raghunath 'Raghu' Mandava, as managing director and chief executive officer following Raghu Mandava's informing the Board of his intention to retire. Segun Ogunsanya joined the Board of Airtel Africa plc with effect from 1 October 2021.

Segun Ogunsanya joined Airtel Africa in 2012 as managing director and chief executive officer Airtel Nigeria and has been responsible for the overall management of our operations in Nigeria, our largest market in Africa. Segun has more than 25 years' business management experience in banking, consumer goods and telecoms. Before joining Airtel in 2012, Segun held leadership roles at Coca-Cola in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya (as managing director and chief executive officer). He has also been the managing director of Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd (Coca-Cola Hellenic owned) and Group head of retail banking operations at Ecobank Transnational Inc, covering 28 countries in Africa. He is an electronics engineer and also a chartered accountant.

Raghu Mandava has retired as managing director and chief executive officer, as a director of Airtel Africa plc and as a member of the Market Disclosure Committee as of 30 September 2021. Following his cessation of employment at Airtel Africa, Mr. Mandava remains available to advise the Chairman, the Airtel Africa Board and the newly appointed managing director and chief executive officer for a nine-month period.

Jaideep Paul, chief financial officer, was appointed as an executive director and joined the Board of Airtel Africa plc with effect from 1 June 2021.

On 12 October 2021, Airtel Africa announced the appointment of Ms Tsega Gebreyes to the Board as an independent non-executive director, with immediate effect.

New administrative office in Dubai

Airtel Africa plc has opened a new office in Dubai, adding to its existing administrative office locations in Nairobi, London, Amsterdam and Delhi.

The executive committee of Airtel Africa plc now operates out of the new office, which provides for significantly improved connectivity and enhanced cooperation with our 14 operating markets across Africa and with our other administrative offices.

Information on additional KPIs

An investor relations pack with information on the additional KPIs and balance sheet is available to download on our website at airtel.africa/investors.

Strategic overview

The Group provides telecoms and mobile money services in 14 emerging markets of sub-Saharan Africa. Our markets are characterised by huge geographies with relatively sparse populations, high population growth rates, high proportions of youth in the population, low smartphone penetration, low data penetration and relatively unbanked populations. Unique mobile user penetration across the Group's footprint is around 47%, and banking penetration remains under 50%. These indicators illustrate the significant opportunity still available to Airtel Africa to enhance both digital and financial inclusion in the communities we serve, enriching and transforming their lives through digitalisation at the same time as growing our revenues profitably, across each of our key services of voice, data and mobile money.

The Group continued to invest in its network and distribution infrastructure to enhance both mobile connectivity and financial inclusion across our countries of operation. In particular, we continued to invest in expanding our 4G network footprint to increase data capacity in our networks to support future business growth, as well as deploying new sites, especially in rural areas, to enhance coverage and connectivity.

We describe our 'Win with' strategy through six strategic pillars. Our customers lie at the core of our strategy, through our fundamental purpose around transforming lives.

Our focus on digitalisation, of both our products and services and our internal systems and processes, increasingly functions as a catalyst, or an 'accelerator', for each of our strategic pillars.

Underpinning our Group strategy is our sustainability platform, describing our continued commitment to both driving sustainable development and acting as a responsible business. We launched our sustainability strategy earlier this year, describing our commitment to developing the infrastructure and services that will drive both digital and financial inclusion for people across Africa and provides a framework to describe our contribution to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals ('SDGs'). We have four key pillars within our sustainability framework: 'Our business', 'Our people', 'Our communities' and 'Our environment'; and we have nine summary goals and commitments, along with corresponding programmes that address each of the 'material' identified topics of the business, covering data security, service quality, supply chain, people commitments, digital inclusion, financial inclusion, access to education, greenhouse gas emissions reduction and environmental stewardship.

This year, we continued to make strong progress across each of our core strategic pillars: 'Win with network', 'Win with distribution' (renamed from the previous 'Win with customers'), 'Win with data', 'Win with mobile money', 'Win with cost' and 'Win with people'.

Win with network

The Group aims to continually provide a best-in-class network experience, including internet experience, to customers. We continued to invest in our network by expanding 4G coverage and building capacity to cater for the future needs of our customers and to continue providing them with high-speed data. Our expansion of 4G network capability across our footprint and connecting rural areas through deployment of new sites continued to be our two key focus areas. Our investment in the 4G network through single RAN technology has resulted in both expansion of our 4G coverage and enhanced network capacity. At the end of FY'22, 87.6% of our total sites are now on 4G, compared to 76.5% in the previous year. We are building a leading, modernised network that can provide the data capacity to meet rapidly growing demand, and enhanced connectivity and digitalisation needs of our markets. Our network data capacity has increased by 40.4% year on year, reaching 16,900+ TB per day, with additional capacity being added at only very marginal cost. We continued to modernise our network across all our countries of operation, with 96% of our sites now on single RAN.

The Group has added almost 10,000 km of additional fibre in the year, with total fibre now more than 64,500km.

The Group has also added additional spectrum in a few of our markets. We have added 10 MHz in the 2600 band in Malawi and 10 MHz in the 2100 band in Kenya. These allocations will help us to maximise network capacity and coverage.

Capital expenditure related to investment activities during FY'22 was $656m, excluding spectrum acquisitions and licence renewals.

Win with distribution (formerly named 'Win with customers')

Sub-Saharan Africa is characterised by low penetrated markets, with unique subscriber penetration at 47%. The Group's strategy is to build assured availability of service through deployment of exclusive retail footprint and ensuring sufficient resourcing to drive revenue generation at each distribution site.

The Group continued to build a unique mix of multi-brand and exclusive franchise channels, combined with a simplified and enhanced self-service app to provide a seamless customer onboarding experience. These have enabled us to add customers, resulting in customer base growth of 8.7% year on year (excluding Nigeria the customer base grew by 10.2%). This has also helped us to grow voice revenue by 15.4% in constant currency.

The Group continued its investment in strengthening our distribution network infrastructure, with a focus on rural distribution networks. During the period, the Group expanded its exclusive franchise stores, adding more than 15,000+ kiosks and mini-shops (taking the total to almost 53,000) across our footprint. The Group also added more than 43,000 activating entities in the year, up by 21%.

Win with data

The Group continued to invest in the expansion of our 4G network, adding significant data capacity to the network at only marginal cost, expanding both home broadband and enterprise business services to greater leverage the 4G network capacity; growing data ARPU and data revenue. We continue to focus on increasing smartphone ownership and increasing data usage at scale, largely via smartphone offerings through OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) device partnerships, and through expanding our network of smartphone device selling outlets.

Our improved 4G network supported our drive to increase smartphone penetration, data customer penetration and the uptake of larger data volumes, resulting in greater data consumption per customer. Smartphone penetration was up by 1.2 percentage point to 34.2% and our data customer base grew by 15.2%, now representing 36.4% of our total customer base.

Data usage per customer reached 3.4 GB per month (from 2.6 GB) led by an increase in smartphone penetration and expansion of our home broadband and enterprise customers. This helped us to grow data revenue by 34.6% in constant currency. Growing penetration and the data usage of customers (particularly 3G and 4G) helped us to grow data ARPU by 18.6%. 4G data usage constituted 66.7% of total data usage on the network in FY'22 with 4G data usage per customer reaching 5.5 GB per month in FY'22, up by 10.7% on FY'21.

 Win with mobile money

The Group has continued to drive financial inclusion. The low penetration of traditional banking services across our footprint leaves a large number of unbanked customers whose needs can be largely fulfilled through mobile money services. We aim to drive the uptake of Airtel Money services in all our markets, harnessing the ability of our profitable mobile money business model to enhance financial inclusion in some of the most 'unbanked' populations in the world.

The Group continued to expand our exclusive distribution network of kiosks, mini-shops and Airtel Money branches, so that customers can access their cash with relative ease. We have increased the number of kiosks and mini-shops by 40.0% and Airtel money branches by almost 60%. Additionally, we have increased the number of (non-exclusive) mobile money agents by 41.7%. Throughout the year, the expansion of our mobile money product portfolio, both through partnerships with leading financial institutions and through expansion of our merchant ecosystem, have further strengthened our mobile money propositions.

Our distribution expansion and enhanced offerings helped drive 20.7% growth in our mobile money customer base, now serving over 26.2 million customers and representing 20.4% of our total customer base (31.1% excluding Nigeria).

Mobile money continues to be one of our fastest growing services, delivering revenue growth of 34.9% in FY'22. It is an increasingly important part of our business, delivering $64.4bn of annual transaction value and accounting for 11.7% of total revenue in FY'22.

Mobile money ARPU increased by 12.2% in FY'22, driven by increased transaction values and higher contributions from merchant payments, cash transactions, P2P transfers and mobile services recharges through Airtel Money.

Win with cost

Our operating cost model is focused on enhancing cost efficiency through changes in the operating design and digitalisation initiatives. We embrace robust cost discipline and continuously seek to improve our processes to reduce operating costs, delivering one of the highest underlying EBITDA margins in the industry. We also use the latest technology to optimally design our networks and improve our capital expenditure efficiency; enabling us to build large incremental capacities at lower marginal cost.

As we continued to expand our business, various cost efficiency initiatives were undertaken during the period, relating mainly to:(i) reduced operating costs at sites due to single RAN; (ii) optimisation of incremental network/site requirements through efficient spectrum utilisation (iii) remodelling our managed services through diversification of supply; and (iv) bandwidth capacity optimisation and implementation of dynamic and contextual interactive voice recognition ('IVR') for more efficient customer interactions.

These have contributed to an expansion of our underlying EBITDA margin by 294 basis points in reported currency and 296 basis points in constant currency. Our underlying EBITDA margin was 49.0% for FY'22, and our operating expenditure as a percentage of revenue improved by 3.0 percentage points.

Win with people

Our values of being Alive, Inclusive and Respectful, underpin our vision of being a responsible employer. We work in highly collaborative teams across the 18 countries in which we have operations or offices, and with 35 different nationalities represented.

Our talented and diverse people have continued to demonstrate incredible dedication and resilience. Their commitment to our business and customers has been a key driver to our long-term growth and as we continue to transform lives in the markets we serve.

Diversity and inclusion remain a key focus area for our business. We made further progress this year with 28% of our ExCo (including OpCos) now being women, up by 5.0 percentage points, with women representing 26% of our total workforce. And we continued to expand financial and digital inclusion to the communities we serve.

Investing in opportunities for learning and development of our people across all our operations has been accelerated through the launch of several digital platforms. Building and maintaining strong functional expertise and capability is a key driver of our performance.

We are committed to employee engagement and upward feedback through regular market visits, town-halls and open mic sessions, which enable us to understand issues that really matter to our colleagues, our workplaces and business operations.

Our reward system is based on simple and consistent metrics that drive a high-performance culture and our people performance metrics are aligned to our business priorities.

We continue to make strides to be an employer of choice with a diverse and inclusive work environment.

Financial review for the year ended 31 March 2022

Nigeria

(1) Voice revenue includes inter-segment revenue of $1m and other revenue includes inter-segment revenue of $2m in the year ended 31 March 2022. Excluding inter-segment revenue, voice revenue was $984m and other revenue was $157m in the year ended 31 March 2022.

Reported currency revenue grew by 21.0% to $1,878m with constant currency growth of 27.7%. The differential in growth rates was due to devaluation of the Nigerian naira by 5.6%. The constant currency revenue growth of 27.7% was driven by both customer base growth of 5.8% and ARPU growth of 33.0% largely driven by higher data and voice usage.

Voice revenue grew by 15.9%, driven by an increase in voice usage per customer of 20.8% which led to an ARPU increase of 20.7%. Customer base growth was affected by the NIN-SIM linkage regulations in Nigeria during the first half of the year but returned to growth, adding 4 million customers in the second half of the year, achieving net growth of 2.4 million customers over the full year. The number of regulatory approved outlets expanded to over 19,100 as of 31 March 2022.

Data revenue grew by 41.1% in constant currency, driven by data customer base growth of 14.9% and data ARPU growth of 37.6%, led by growth in data usage per customer to 4.0 GB per month (from 2.8 GB in the prior year). Our continued 4G network expansion and increased smartphone penetration has supported data usage growth. Almost 99% of our sites in Nigeria are now delivering 4G, and smartphone penetration of our customers has increased by almost 1 percentage point. Data revenue accounted for 39.1% of total revenue in Nigeria in the year, up by 3.7% on the prior year. For Q4'22, 43.6% of our data customer base were 4G users, contributing to 76.0% of total data usage. Data usage per customer reached 4.2 GB per month and 4G data usage per customer reached 6.5 GB per month, a significant increase on the 4.6 GB usage per customer per month of Q4'21.

Other revenue grew by 58.2%, with the main contribution coming from the growth in value added services revenue, led by airtime credit services.

Underlying EBITDA was $1,037m, growing by 23.6% in reported currency and representing constant currency growth of 30.4%. Underlying EBITDA margin improved to 55.2%, an increase of 115 basis points in reported currency and 114 basis points in constant currency, as a result of improvements in operational efficiency.

Operating free cash flow was $786m, up by 50.7%, due to the expansion of underlying EBITDA.

East Africa1

(1) The East Africa business region includes Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

(2) Revenue includes intra-segment eliminations of $85m for the year ended 31 March 2022 and $64m for the prior year.

(3) Voice revenue includes inter-segment revenue of $1m and other revenue includes inter-segment revenue of $6m in the year ended 31 March 2022. Excluding inter-segment revenue, voice revenue was $782m and other revenue was $146m in the year ended 31 March 2022.

(4) Mobile money revenue post intra-segment eliminations with mobile services was $326m for the year ended 31 March 2022 and $227m for the prior year.

(5 ) Operating exceptional items of $32m in the year ended 31 March 2022 consist of $12m provision for expected settlement of a contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party and $20m cost of agreeing historical spectrum fees in one of the Group's subsidiaries.

East Africa revenue in reported currency grew by 24.3% to $1,717m with constant currency revenue growth of 22.7%. This growth was delivered across all key services; voice revenue grew by 19.2%, data revenue by 27.4% and mobile money revenue by 37.1% in constant currency. Reported currency revenue growth was slightly higher than constant currency rates due to currency appreciation in the Ugandan shilling and Zambian kwacha, partially offset by currency devaluation in the Malawian kwacha.

Voice revenue grew by 19.2%, driven by both customer base growth of 7.8% and voice ARPU growth of 7.5%. The customer base growth was largely driven by expansion of both network coverage and the distribution network. Voice usage per customer increased by 5.8% to 349 minutes per customer per month, thereby driving voice ARPU growth of 7.5%.

Data revenue grew by 27.4%, largely driven by data customer base growth of 12.9% and data ARPU growth of 5.6%. We continued to invest in our network and expanded our 4G network infrastructure which helped us to grow both data usage and the data customer base. The data customer base increased 12.9% to 18.3 million, with 4G customers accounting for 40.5% of our total data customer base and contributing 60.2% of total data usage. 85.8% of our total sites are now on 4G, compared with 76.4% at the end of the prior year. Data usage per customer reached 3.3 GB per customer per month, up by 22.1%.

Mobile money revenue was up by 37.1%, largely driven by growth in Zambia, Uganda and Malawi. The mobile money customer base grew by 20.5% and mobile money ARPU increased by 14.5%, due largely to expansion of our distribution network. The transaction value per customer reached $183 per customer per month, up by 16.0% from $153 per customer per month in the prior year. The slowdown in mobile money revenue growth was due to implementation of additional levies by the Government of Tanzania on mobile money withdrawal and P2P transactions from July 2021, which were subsequently revised downwards in early September 2021.

The underlying EBITDA margin reached 49.4%, an improvement of 331 basis points in constant currency, as a result of strong revenue growth and improvements in operating efficiency.

Operating free cash flow was $577m, up by 46.8% due largely to the expansion of underlying EBITDA.

Francophone Africa1

(1) The Francophone Africa business region includes Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Niger, Republic of the Congo, and Seychelles.

(2) Underlying revenue includes intra-segment eliminations of $44m for the year ended 31 March 2022 and $36m for the prior year. It also excludes one-time exceptional revenue of $20m relating to a settlement in Niger in the year ended 31 March 2021.

(3) Voice revenue includes inter-segment revenue of $2m in the year ended 31 March 2022. Excluding inter-segment revenue, voice revenue was $592m in the year ended 31 March 2022.

(4) Mobile money revenue post intra-segment eliminations with mobile services was $98m in the year ended 31 March 2022 and $74m in the prior year.

(5) Operating exceptional items in the prior year include exceptional revenue relating to a one-time settlement in Niger for $20m partially offset by one-off cost of $6m in Francophone Africa.

Underlying revenue grew by 17.2% both in reported currency and in constant currency. This growth was largely driven by DRC, Chad, Niger and Gabon. The slight currency devaluation of the Central African franc was offset by appreciation in the Seychelles rupee.

Voice underlying revenue grew by 10.0% in constant currency, driven by customer base growth of 15.9% partially offset by voice ARPU decline of 7.9%. The ARPU decline was mainly driven by reductions in international call revenue and local incoming call revenue (the latter due to changes in local interconnect rates in Gabon, Niger and Republic of the Congo). The customer base growth was driven by expansion of both network coverage and distribution infrastructure.

Data revenue grew by 31.0% in constant currency, supported by both customer base growth of 21.3% and data ARPU growth of 1.3%. We continued to expand our 4G network (65.3% of sites now on 4G) and data network coverage, and we enhanced our distribution infrastructure supporting further growth of the data customer base. 30.5% of the Francophone Africa customer base now use data services. 4G data usage contributes 64.1% of total data usage and 44.8% of data users were 4G customers. Data usage per customer was 2.4 GB per month (up 23.1% on the prior year) while 4G data usage per customer reached 4.5 GB (up 3.4%).

Mobile money revenue grew by 29.6% in constant currency, driven by both customer base growth of 21.8% and mobile money ARPU growth of 5.2%. The mobile money ARPU growth was driven by an increase in the transaction value per customer of 8.3%, now at $422 per customer per month. Expansions of our exclusive distribution network and the number of agents helped us to grow the mobile money customer base by 21.8%.

Underlying EBITDA grew by 27.6% with a margin of 41.0%, an improvement of 332 basis points in reported currency and 337 basis points in constant currency. This underlying EBITDA growth was driven by both revenue growth and increased efficiency in operating expenses.

Operating free cash flow was $339m, up 23.1%, due to the expansion in underlying EBITDA.

Mobile services

 (1) Mobile service revenue after inter-segment eliminations was $4,290m in the year ended 31 March 2022 and $3,587m in the prior year. Underlying revenue for Mobile service excludes one-time exceptional revenue of $20m relating to a settlement in Niger in the year ended 31 March 2021.

(2) Operating exceptional items of $32m in the year ended 31 March 2022 consist of a $12m provision for expected settlement of a contractual dispute in which one of the Group's subsidiaries is a party and $20m costs of agreeing historical spectrum fees in one of the Group's subsidiaries. The prior year operating exceptional items include exceptional revenue on account of a one-time settlement in Niger amounting to $20m, partially offset by one-off costs of $6m in Francophone Africa.

Mobile services underlying revenue in reported currency grew by 19.6%, with constant currency growth of 22.0%, supported by growth in both voice and data services.

Voice underlying revenue grew by 15.4% in constant currency, supported by customer base growth of 8.7% and voice ARPU growth of 8.0%. The customer base growth was driven by expansion of our network and distribution infrastructure. The slowdown in customer base growth was due to the introduction of new SIM registration regulations in Nigeria. Excluding Nigeria, the customer base grew by 10.2%. In Nigeria, our customer base returned to growth in the second half of the year, adding a net 2.4 million customers for the full year. Voice minutes per customer reached 257 minutes per month, up by 9.8%, resulting in voice ARPU growth of 8.0%. Total network minutes increased by 17.3%.

Data revenue continued to be a key driver of growth, up by 34.6% in constant currency. This was driven by data customer base growth of 15.2% and data ARPU growth of 18.6%. Our continued investment in our network and expansion of our 4G network infrastructure helped us to expand our data customer base. 87.6% of our Group sites are now operating on 4G, compared with 76.5% in the prior year. 36.4% of our total customer base were data users, up from 34.3% in the prior year. 4G data usage per customer increased to 5.5 GB per month compared with 5.0 GB in the prior year. 4G data usage reached 5.9 GB per customer per month for Q4'22. Total data usage per customer reached 3.4 GB per month, up 31.0% from the 2.6 GB of the prior year. At the end of the year, 42.6% of the total data customer base were 4G data customers, up from 36.4% in the prior year. The increase in 4G data customer penetration has helped to drive data ARPU growth.

Data revenue contribution reached 32.3% of total Group revenue in the year, up from 29.8% in the prior year.

Mobile money

 (1) Mobile money service revenue post inter-segment eliminations with mobile services was $424m in the year ended 31 March 2022 and $301m in the prior year.

Reported currency mobile money revenue grew by 37.9% with a constant currency growth of 34.9%. The slowdown in mobile money revenue growth since July 2021 has been due to the implementation of levies by the Government of Tanzania on mobile money withdrawal and P2P transactions (subsequently revised downwards in early September 2021). Excluding Tanzania, revenue grew by 41.6% in constant currency. The constant currency revenue growth of 34.9% was driven by both customer base growth of 20.7% and ARPU growth of 12.2%. The mobile money customer base growth was due to the expansion of our distribution network, particularly our exclusive channels of Airtel money branches and kiosks. We continued to expand our mobile money portfolio through partnerships with leading financial institutions, and the expansion of our merchant ecosystem further strengthened our mobile money propositions. The increase in transaction value per customer to $223 per month, up by 13.9%, led to mobile money ARPU growth of 12.2%.

Q4'22 annualised transaction value reached $67.2bn in reported currency, with mobile money revenue contributing 12.0% of total revenue in the quarter.

The mobile money customer base grew by 20.7% to 26.2 million in the year. Mobile money customer base penetration reached 20.4%, an increase of 2 percentage points. The ARPU growth of 12.2% was largely driven by an increase in transaction values and higher contributions from cash transactions, merchant payments, P2P transfers and mobile service recharges through Airtel Money.

Underlying EBITDA was $270m, up by 38.1% in reported currency, with a constant currency growth of 34.2%. The reported currency growth rate was higher than the constant currency growth rate due to appreciation in the Zambian kwacha. The underlying EBITDA margin for the year was 48.7%, broadly in line with the prior year.

Forward looking statements

This document contains certain forward-looking statements regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, amongst other things, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the economic and business circumstances occurring from time to time in the countries and markets in which the Group operates.

These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as "believe," "anticipate," "could," "may," "would," "should," "intend," "plan," "potential," "predict," "will," "expect," "estimate," "project," "positioned," "strategy," "outlook", "target" and similar expressions.

It is believed that the expectations reflected in this document are reasonable, but they may be affected by a wide range of variables that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated.

All such forward-looking statements involve estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual future financial condition, performance and results to differ materially from the plans, goals, expectations and results expressed in the forward-looking statements and other financial and/or statistical data within this communication.

Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements are uncertainties related to the following: the impact of competition from illicit trade; the impact of adverse domestic or international legislation and regulation; changes in domestic or international tax laws and rates; adverse litigation and dispute outcomes and the effect of such outcomes on Airtel Africa's financial condition; changes or differences in domestic or international economic or political conditions; the ability to obtain price increases and the impact of price increases on consumer affordability thresholds; adverse decisions by domestic or international regulatory bodies; the impact of market size reduction and consumer down-trading; translational and transactional foreign exchange rate exposure; the impact of serious injury, illness or death in the workplace; the ability to maintain credit ratings; the ability to develop, produce or market new alternative products and to do so profitably; the ability to effectively implement strategic initiatives and actions taken to increase sales growth; the ability to enhance cash generation and pay dividends and changes in the market position, businesses, financial condition, results of operations or prospects of Airtel Africa.

Past performance is no guide to future performance and persons needing advice should consult an independent financial adviser. The forward-looking statements contained in this document reflect the knowledge and information available to Airtel Africa at the date of preparation of this document and Airtel Africa undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

No statement in this communication is intended to be, nor should be construed as, a profit forecast or a profit estimate and no statement in this communication should be interpreted to mean that earnings per share of Airtel Africa plc for the current or any future financial periods would necessarily match, exceed or be lower than the historical published earnings per share of Airtel Africa plc.

Financial data included in this document are presented in US dollars rounded to the nearest million. Therefore, discrepancies in the tables between totals and the sums of the amounts listed may occur due to such rounding. The percentages included in the tables throughout the document are based on numbers calculated to the nearest $1,000 and therefore minor rounding differences may result in the tables. Growth metrics are provided on a constant currency basis unless otherwise stated. The Group has presented certain financial information on a constant currency basis. This is calculated by translating the results for the current financial year and prior financial year at a fixed 'constant currency' exchange rate, which is done to measure the organic performance of the Group. Growth rates for our reporting regions and service segments are provided in constant currency as this better represents the underlying performance of the business.

Consolidated Financial Statements

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

(All amounts are in US Dollar Millions; unless stated otherwise)