News
Airtel Africa Records Double Digit Revenue, 140M Subscriber Base in 2023 Report
Airtel Africa posted double digit revenue growth of 11.5% in its result of the year ending March 31, 2023 even as it grew customer base by 9.0% to 140million.
Olusegun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer, Airtel Africa, said: “Over the last year, the operating environment has been challenging in many ways, yet our strategic focus on providing reliable, affordable and accessible services across our markets has enabled us to sustain our top-line growth momentum.
“The resilience of our underlying EBITDA margins has shown the effectiveness of our operating model, despite significant inflationary and foreign exchange pressures. Strong customer and ARPU growth over the year demonstrates that demand for our services remains very strong and gives us the confidence to continue investing to support our future growth potential.
“Over the year, we invested $500m on additional spectrum, including 5G, across many of our OpCos which, combined with our capex, will underpin our growth ambitions. Despite this investment, and driven by a disciplined capital allocation policy, our balance sheet remains strong and has been further de-risked over the last year by the prepayment of $450m HoldCo debt in July last year.
“Currencies across our footprint have been under pressure, and the impact from the revaluation of our foreign currency denominated liabilities provided some headwinds in the last financial year.
“While currency devaluation is not in our control, we have plans to continue to mitigate its impact by growing our revenues at a faster pace than devaluation, with double-digit revenue growth in reported currency delivered this year and as we continue to reduce our foreign currency exposure across our balance sheet.
“Our six-pillar strategy continues to provide the basis for stakeholder value creation by facilitating continued expansion of our services to enhance both digital and financial inclusion across Africa. This strategy will continue and will be underpinned by our sustainability strategy as articulated in our Sustainability Report published in October 2022.
I am pleased with this year’s performance and wish to thank all our customers, business partners, governments and regulators for their support and our employees for their consistent contribution to the business’ success. The macro-economic outlook remains volatile, but we are well positioned to deliver against the growth opportunities these markets offer, with a continued focus on margin resilience.”
Carl Cruz, Airtel Nigeria CEO, added: “the results of the year ended March 2023, place Airtel Africa in an optimistic footing and Nigeria, being one of the most vibrant countries in the Group’s operations, is in a vantage position to capitalise on 5G technology, an energetic subscriber base, and the growing adoption of mobile money services, while we continue to promote the Group’s sustainability commitments.”
Highlights
Operating key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Total customer base grew by 9.0% to 140.0 million, as the penetration of mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise, driving a 16.9% increase in data customers to 54.6 million and a 20.4% increase in mobile money customers to 31.5 million.
- Constant currency ARPU growth of 7.4% was largely driven by increased usage across voice, data and mobile money.
- Mobile money transaction value increased by 41.3%, with Q4’23 annualised transaction value exceeding $102bn in constant currency.
Financial performance
- Revenue in constant currency grew by 17.6%, with revenues growing by 11.5% to $5,255m in reported currency.
- While each segment’s reported currency revenue growth was impacted by currency devaluation, they all delivered double-digit constant currency revenue growth. Across the Group mobile service revenue grew by 16.2% in constant currency, driven by voice revenue growth of 11.8% and data revenue growth of 23.8%. Mobile money revenue grew by 29.6% in constant currency.
- Underlying EBITDA increased by 17.3% in constant currency, and 11.4% in reported currency to $2,575m, with an underlying EBITDA margin of 49.0%, reflecting the resilience of our operating model despite inflationary cost pressures.
- Profit after tax was $750m, a decrease of only $5m, after including a higher foreign exchange and derivative losses of $245m.
- Basic EPS at 17.7 cents was up by 5.2% due to higher operating profits and exceptional items gain on deferred tax credit recognition in Kenya, the DRC and Tanzania partially offset by higher foreign exchange and derivative losses. EPS before exceptional items was 13.6 cents, a reduction of 15.0%, largely due to higher foreign exchange and derivative losses of $245m. EPS before exceptional items and excluding foreign exchange and derivative losses was 20.6 cents, up by 13.4%.
Capital allocation
- Capex increased by 14.0% to $748m, in line with our guidance, as we continue to invest for future growth. Additionally, we acquired spectrum in Nigeria, the DRC, Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya during the year.
- In July 2022, the Group prepaid $450m of outstanding external debt at HoldCo. The remaining debt at HoldCo is now $550m, falling due in May 2024. Cash at the holding companies was $398m. Leverage was at 1.4x in March 2023, broadly stable despite $500m of spectrum investment during the year.
- The Board has recommended a final dividend of 3.27 cents per share, making the total dividend for FY’23 5.45 cents per share, an increase of 9% in line with our progressive dividend policy.
Sustainability strategy
- The Group’s inaugural Sustainability Report was published in October 2022, reflecting commitment to sustainability and detailing progress against the long-term goals as outlined in the sustainability strategy.
- UNICEF partnership launched across 6 of our markets providing educational resources, free of charge, to more than 250,000 children this year on our way to reaching one million children by 2027.
- The Group’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2050 has progressed. We published our Scope 1, 2 and 3 baseline GHG footprint in October 2022 and in May 2023 announced our detailed plans to achieve over 60% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity by 2032.

News
Schneider Electric Reinforces Support to Partners in Achieving Energy Management Goals
Schneider Electric, a global leader in digital energy management solutions, recently held an event for its valued partners with a focus on industry trends, challenges, and the future of energy management.

Officials of Schneider Electric, an event for its valued partners with a focus on industry trends, challenges, and the future of energy management recently
The event provided a platform for attendees to network and share critical insights, including the latest market trends and Schneider Electric’s newest offerings in energy management.
Present at the event were, Country President, Schneider Electric, West Africa, Ajibola Akindele, official distributors, retail partners, panel builders, Marketing and Communications Manager, Schneider Electric, Omobolanle Omotayo, Channel Sales Director, Schneider Electric, Nurudeen Oyedeji, amongst others.
The event featured engaging discussions and presentations that explored the current and future trends in the industry, as well as how Schneider Electric can better serve its customers’ evolving needs while showcasing the company’s latest products and services.
Expressing his gratitude to their partners, Country President, Schneider Electric, West Africa, Ajibola Akindele said, “Our partners’ satisfaction is crucial to enhancing our individual efforts, and we are thankful for their unwavering support. Their partnership has been instrumental in our success as an organization, and we remain committed to working collaboratively to achieve our shared goals.”
Speaking further on working collaboratively with partners, Ajibola Akindele mentioned Schneider Electric has developed a program targeted at empowering electricians for the safe installation of energy management solutions,
“At the core of Schneider Electric is passion for people. To guarantee the safety of our customers, an initiative has been created to equip electricians with products and technical skills for safe installation.”
Channel Sales Director, Nurudeen Oyedeji highlighted a few of Schneider Electric’s latest offerings in energy management, “We have Electrical Vehicle (EV) Chargers, flexible design switches, circuit breakers, switchboards, Building Management Systems (BMS) and other energy solutions designed for residential and small businesses, buildings, data centres, and industries. We look forward to a continuous collaboration with our partners to drive innovation and create sustainable energy solutions for the future.”
Schneider Electric drives digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, endpoint to cloud connecting products, controls, software, and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centres, infrastructure, and industries.
News
NITDA, SMEDAN to Institutionalize SMEs in Nigeria
The National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA and the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) have agreed to institutionalise the activities of the Small and Medium Enterprises, (SMEs) in the country.
The proposed agreement was revealed at a meeting between Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE, the NITDA’s Director General, and his SMEDAN counterpart, Mr Olawale Fasanya. The meeting was held at NITDA’s Corporate Headquarters, Abuja,
According to NITDA’s boss, institutionalising the SME would serve as a catalyst for creating wealth and prosperity, adding that, “We have between 60-90 per cent of our businesses under SMEs, but operating informally, how can we formalise them so that even the government can benefit by collecting taxes and have a structure in place to capture the GDP correctly, he queried.
Inuwa noted that most of the Startups the Agency deals with are SMEs who are also trying to solve a real life problem.
He said, “We see Startups as our babies, while for you anybody trying to start any business you see them as your babies. We have startups solving problems in agric, commerce, education, and logistics and so on.”
Inuwa added that the world is moving to smart manufacturing whereby you can design anything on your system and print it using 3D printer.
“We have Digital Fabrication Lab in our Center (the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics NCAIR) where you can design all these and manufacture them or prototype them and do mass production.”
He also announced that plans are underway to have facilities everywhere as the goal is for every Nigerian to have access to these kinds of facilities.
Enumerating some of the initiatives which the Agency is undertaking and the collaboration is into with the big techs to include NITDA Learning Management System Online Academy, the Director General assured SMEDAN that their SMEs will be on boarded into some of the programs.
“We are also looking beyond SMEs today; we have what we call IDEs (Innovation Driven Enterprises) which is a process where you start with a mindset that you are solving the immediate problem but the bigger picture is to go global and Information Technology is making it possible for you to reach anywhere in the world.”
Citing the recent research conducted by the Lagos Business School on the booming nature of the Gig economy, the Director General said that as at last year, there were over 2 million Nigerians earning a living through the Gig economy who receive training and work from anywhere using IT, like those doing Bolt and online digital marketing.
Describing the roles of the two agencies as common, the Inuwa said they both exist to develop and help Nigerians create wealth through the use of IT.
“IT is pervasive, anywhere you think of today you need IT to enable it. Our lives revolve around technology,” he noted.
“This kind of collaboration is what can help us have structure to even protect the Gig economy as well”, he concluded.
Earlier in his remark, Mr Fasanya said that they were in the Agency to intimate NITDA of their readiness to further enter into other collaborative areas that will be more impactful to the society.
The SMEDAN’s Director General revealed that they have identified about 70 youths in all the 36 states of the Federation who were trained on different skills, particularly on how to market their products digitally.
While disclosing that his organisation wants their SMEs to take advantage of the digital space, Mr Fasanya said that would give them required knowledge on e-learning platforms, e- marketing and so on.
News
Airtel Employees Give Students a Reason to Imagine, Provides Access to Digital Education
Employees of Airtel Nigeria, under its CSR initiative, Employee Volunteer Scheme Initiative, paid a visit to Kuramo College, a government secondary school in Lagos, and donated modern routers, each equipped with 100GB of data and a two-month roll-over access fee.
The connection devices were donated by Airtel’s Information and Technology team, with a mission to empower students with enhanced digital connectivity.
Speaking during the event, Director, Information and Technology, Seun Solanke, said, “Airtel aims to empower young minds by equipping them with the connectivity to imagine and unlock a world of knowledge and opportunities.
“For Airtel, it is no longer about being a smartphone network but giving people a reason to imagine, so that people can explore the possibilities powered by technology and connectivity. The world is evolving, young Nigerians now have access to unlimited possibilities and can now create their own job titles and descriptions, which is why we now have YouTubers, social media Influencers and the likes.”
He concluded by encouraging the students to maximize the provision of connectivity to back up their future imaginations with the right information and resources, in other to ensure a bright future.
The activities under the Airtel Nigeria Employee Volunteer Scheme, said Airtel management, aligns with the company’s commitment to bridging the digital divide in the country and enabling students to leverage the power of the internet, as the distribution of routers with data plans will ensure that students have uninterrupted access to educational resources, research materials, and online learning platforms, regardless of their socio-economic background.
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