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Devaluation of the Nigerian Naira and Malawian Kwacha has seen the company post a loss of $89 million after tax, despite a major uptick in subscribers
This week, pan-African telecoms group Airtel Africa has reported its end of year results, with the company making a loss of the back of ongoing currency devaluation issues.
The results showed a revenue decline of 5.3% to $4.98 billion from $5.26 billion the previous year.
EBITDA similarly shrank by 5.7%, falling to $2.43 billion from $2.58 billion.
Ultimately, this saw Airtel Africa swing from a profitability last year to making a loss this year, recording a loss after tax of $89 million.
Unsurprisingly, the largest factor in these punishing results was the devaluation of currency in the key markets of Nigeria and Malawi. The devaluation of the Nigerian naira, for example, accounted for a loss of $549 million.
It should be noted, however, that these financial results belie a rapidly growing customer base, which increased by 9% to 152.7 million this year. Customer data usage also increased by 20.8% year-on-year.
According to Airtel, the company’s EBITDA would, in fact, have risen by 21.3% off the back of this growth, had the currencies remained stable.
Airtel Africa’s Chief Executive Officer, Segun Ogunsanya, remained positive about the company’s strategy.
“The consistent deployment of our ‘Win with’ strategy supported the acceleration in constant currency revenue growth over the recent quarters which have reduced the impact of currency headwinds faced across most of our markets,” he said.
“This strong revenue performance is a reflection not only of the opportunity that is inherent across our markets but also the resilience of our affordable offerings despite the inflationary pressure many of our customers have experienced.”
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