Airtel Africa said that it would initiate a $100 million share repurchase program following the release of its results for the nine months that ended on December 31, 2023, which showed tremendous underlying performance.
The company revealed that, despite the significant impact of currency fluctuations on growth, revenues at constant currency increased by 21% year over year in the three months ending December 31, but decreased by 8.3% as a result of the naira’s depreciation.
According to the results that were made public yesterday, constant-currency revenues increased by 20.2% to $3.86 billion for the first three quarters of the fiscal year as a whole, but on a reported basis, they decreased by 1.4%.
According to checks conducted by The Guardian, Airtel Nigeria has 60.2 million users and has contributed to the ongoing uptake of mobile money and broadband services.Â
The corporation reported a 19.5% increase in mobile money clients to 37.5 million and a 22.4% increase in data consumers to 62.7 million.
The outcome showed that capital expenditure increased 8.2 percent to $494 million, while earnings per share before extraordinary items decreased 34.6 percent to 7.1 cents as a result of a $140 million derivative and FX loss net of tax due to a weaker Naira.
Olusegun Ogunsanya, the group’s chief executive officer, made the following comments regarding the trading update: “We continue to see sustained, positive growth momentum across the business, despite the inflationary and currency headwinds, because we are laser-focused on executing our growth strategy in conjunction with excellent operational execution. Demand has remained strong over time, underscoring the importance of the phone, internet, and mobile money services we offer to our clients throughout the area. This has led to a robust growth in constant currency revenue of 20.2%, along with a rise in EBITDA margins.”
“The Group has experienced less of an impact from currency fluctuations because to this robust operating performance. In this sense, even while additional currency devaluation—especially in Nigeria—has negatively impacted our reported financial performance, it won’t have an impact on how we carry out our expansion objectives.”
“I am happy to report that we will be able to fully repay HoldCo debt when it becomes due in May 2024 thanks to our continuous emphasis on capital allocation priorities, which will ensure the success of our balance sheet de-risking strategy going forward. This will enable us to capitalize on new business possibilities, such as our new data center business, Nxtra by Airtel, which we established in 2016, and to continue investing in our strategic priority to deliver dependable and reasonably priced services to clients throughout our markets.”
“Given our present leverage and track record of outstanding operating performance, the Board plans to initiate a $100 million share buyback program, which will begin in early March 2024 and run for 12 months. Despite the difficulties posed by growing diesel costs, continuous currency depreciation, and inflationary pressures in several of our countries, we are still in a strong position to take advantage of the appealing growth prospects that our markets present. We are also continuing to be focused on maintaining margin resilience.”
