Airtel Africa to present 9-month scorecard
The board of Airtel Africa Plc has announced plan to tender its performance metrics for the nine months to 31 December 2020 later this month.
This is according to a filing the telecoms giant submitted at the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Wednesday, inviting its shareholders and the investing public to join the presentation virtually.
The statement signed by Simon O’Hara, the group company secretary, read: “Airtel Africa, a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with a presence in 14 countries across Africa, will announce its results for the nine months to 31 December 2020 on 29 January 2021.
“Management will host a conference call on the day of results for analysts and investors at 2:00pm GMT.
“Participants are requested to pre-register for the call by navigating to: www.diamondpass.net/4467631. Once registered, participants will receive a calendar invitation with the dial in details for the call.”
Airtel Africa is third most capitalized equity asset listed at the Nigerian boss with a total of 3,758,151,504 share outstanding at N851.8 each as at the close of trading session on Wednesday January 20, 2021.
Business Metrics reported that the telecoms and payment giant reported broad base positive performance for its half-year (H1) period ended September 30, 2020.
According to the H1 financial disclosure, Airtel Africa realised $145 million as the profit after tax (PAT) for the period.
This was however 36.6 per cent decline from the 2019 half year record, despite 10.7 per cent rise in revenue at $1.815 billion in the six-month period and 14.3 per cent uptick in the Q2 revenue alone.
Airtel Africa then ascribed this to the recognition in the prior year of one-off gain of $72 million related to the expired indemnity to certain pre-IPO investors.
Key highlights of its H1 financial report
- Customer base grew by 12.0% to 116.4 million
- Revenue on reported basis increased by 10.7% to $1,815m, with Q2 revenue growth of 14.3%
- Revenue growth in constant currency was 16.4% in H1, and 19.6% in Q2. Growth was recorded across all regions: Nigeria up 20.2%, East Africa up 21.9% and Francophone Africa up 4.4%, and services, with voice revenue up by 7.0%, data by 33.4% and mobile money by 30.4%
- Underlying EBITDA increased 12.8% to $812m while constant currency underlying EBITDA growth was 19.3% • Reported underlying EBITDA margin was 44.7%, up by 85 bps (110 bps in constant currency)
- Operating profit increased by 19.5% to $472m, an increase of 28.3% in constant currency
- Free cash flow was $319m compared to $210m in the same period last year
- Basic EPS was $3.0¢, down 52.9% largely as a result of exceptional items and a one-off derivative gain incurred in the prior year. Excluding these one-off benefits basic EPS would be up 19%. EPS before exceptional items was $3.0¢
- The board declared an interim dividend of $1.5¢ (one and a half cents of the US dollar) per share in line with the new progressive dividend policy to focus on growth opportunities and faster deleveraging. The new policy aims to grow the dividend annually by a mid to high-single digit percentage from a base of $4 cents per share for FY.