Mobile money revenue for Airtel Africa, a telecommunications company, has increased by 26.9 percent to $515 million in its recently released nine months (9M) financial results for the period ended December 2022 from $406 million the same period of 2021.
According to a statement by the company, the growth in mobile money revenue was a major contributing factor to the 12 percent increase in revenue to $3.91 billion in 9M of 2022 from $3.49 billion.
“Total customer base increased to 138.5 million (up 10.1 percent), as the penetration of mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise, driving the data customer base up 13.6 percent and mobile money customer base up 22.2 percent,” it said.
It said the revenue from voice, data, and others which grew by seven percent, 17 percent, and 4.9 percent amounted to $1.87 billion, $1.32 billion, and $321 million respectively.
Read also: FCMB posts N32.6bn profit in 2022, highest in 5years
“Revenue growth was recorded across all reporting segments, with mobile services revenue for the Group up 15.9 percent reflecting Nigeria up 20.9 percent, East Africa up 11.9 percent and Francophone Africa up 11.8 percent,” the company added.
Segun Ogunsanya, chief executive officer at Airtel Africa, said he was particularly excited by the performance of our mobile money business, with annualized transaction value reaching nearly $100bn, as they continue to drive financial inclusion in the continent.
“We will continue to invest in expanding our network and evolving our service offerings to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across our markets,” he said.
He added that they have especially focussed on enhancing their spectrum footprint across all our markets.
“Over the last nine months we have spent almost $490m on 4G and 5G spectrum across key markets to improve network capacity and quality, future-proof the company for continued growth opportunities and facilitate economic progress in all our markets.”
Airtel’s profit grew by 1.75 percent to $523 million in the nine-month period of 2022 from $514 million in the corresponding period of 2021.
However, with expenses growing by 11.69 percent year on year, amounting to $2.01 billion, the profit margin declined by 136 basis points to 13.36 percent in 9M’2022 from 14.72 percent in 9M’2021
