Airtel Africa recently released its financial performance for Q4 FY22 as well as the entire FY22. The company has posted a net profit of $240 million for the quarter. It is a 56% jump YoY and 33% QoQ. However, the customer addition and the average revenue per user (ARPU) of the telco fell slightly. Airtel Africa’s revenue during the last quarter of FY22 was $1.222 billion, which was 18% YoY and 0.2% up sequentially. The net debt of the company fell 3.5% sequentially to $2.941 billion in the quarter ending March 2022.
Airtel Africa’s Monthly Churn Rises to 4.3% Sequentially
It is worth noting that while the telco has made good profits, the monthly subscriber churn rate is higher than ideal. Airtel Africa reported a monthly churn rate of 4.3% sequentially, which is a marginal increase over the previous quarter. In addition to this, the telco’s ARPU fell to $3.2%, which was a sequential decline of 3%. However, the telco’s data revenue grew 28% YoY and around 1.3% sequentially to $398 million. At the end of the quarter, the data customer base of the telco stood at 46.7 million, up by 3.6% sequentially and 15% annually. Airtel Africa also received a full payment service bank (FSB) license in Nigeria. According to the CEO of the company, this license will pave the path for Airtel Africa to maximise and improve its revenues from the mobile money business. Airtel Africa is also eyeing to roll out 5G networks in key markets initially. The company has not yet acquired spectrum for 5G services though, and is looking forward to doing so. However, the CEO said that the major focus would be 4G only as the countries where it operates have very low 4G customer penetration. Thus, the major focus right now would be to expand the data customer base by leveraging the 4G networks that the telco has already deployed in many regions.
