Telecom group Airtel Africa reported $6.4 billion in revenue in the year to March, marking a nearly 30% year-on-year increase.
Airtel operates in 14 sub-Saharan African countries and experienced a 10% rise in its customer base in the same period, driven by double-digit percentage growth in both the number of its data and mobile-money subscribers.
African mobile network operators are increasingly diversifying their services away from voice and text features to benefit from growing internet access, especially for smartphone users. Airtel said data revenues — which rose by 35.2% within the period — have become the largest component of its revenues, and that customers now consume 8.9 gigabytes per month on average, up from 7 gigabytes a year ago.
Sunil Taldar, Airtel Africa’s CEO, said the company has leaned on “new digital technologies and AI” to help it unlock growth opportunities. But he warned that increasing energy costs due to the Iran war would “likely lead to increased cost inflation.”