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Airtel Africa posted an after-tax profit of $79 million for the half-year ended 30 September 2024, marking a 726.3 per cent increase over its bottom line for the same period of last year, when the wireless service provider incurred a net loss of $13 million.
Its unaudited results for the period released on Friday indicated that the telecoms operator would have continued on the path of loss-making if not for an exceptional tax gain of $80 million.
The tax gain resulted from derivative and foreign exchange losses from the devaluation of the Nigerian naira, Airtel Africa said. Nigeria is the biggest market of the telco.
The stock fell 5.5 per cent in London, where the company is dual listed, but remained unchanged in Lagos after the financial report was issued.
“We have already seen strong progress, with an acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the last quarter as demand for ourselves remain 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,” said CEO Sunil Taldar.
“Furthermore, we have seen our cost optimisation programme already show initial green shoots, which combined with our operational leverage, has contributed to an expansion of our EBITDA margins in Q2’25 compared to the previous quarter,” he added.
Revenue for the period slid 9.7 per cent to $2.4 billion as two of its key income sources – voice revenue and data revenue – recorded a decline.
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The company’s mobile money division expanded its subscriber base by 13.4 per cent to 41.5 million during the period under review.
Profit before tax stood at $178 million, up from $12 million.
In May, Airtel Africa announced that it had repaid $550 million, achieving a zero-debt position at its holding company.
The company had earlier announced a share repurchase plan which enabled it to buy back 61 million units of its own shares worth $88 million as of the end of September.
Total assets grew to $10.6 billion from N9.9 billion at the end of March.
Airtel Africa has returned 16.6 per cent so far this year on its share price quoted in Lagos.
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