Airtel Africa, a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services in 14 African countries, has announced a 12% growth in mobile data revenue for its East African region, for the first quarter ending June 30 , 2024.
The region comprises six countries including; Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia.
The company’s East Africa mobile data revenue increased to $170 million during the quarter, up from $151 million during the same period the previous year.
Airtel Africa attributed the growth to significant expansion in the East African mobile data market.
At Airtel Africa group level, data usage per customer surged by 25.1% to 6.2 GB, generating revenue of US$409 million.
East Africa contributed significantly to this performance, with a 14.6% increase in data customers and a 7.1% rise in data Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), resulting in US$170 million in regional revenue.
These achievements were fueled by strategic investments in network expansion and enhancement.
4G network coverage expanded to 97.6% of sites (from 90.4% in the previous quarter), and 5G technology was introduced in four markets with 871 enabled sites.
Overall, East Africa mobile services revenue grew by 6.5% to $423 million, driven by a 12.4% increase in voice revenue and a 25.7% increase in data revenue, and growth in other revenue streams.
Additionally, the East African Airtel Money business thrived, with revenue soaring 31.7% to $167 million compared to $155 million in the same period last year.
The Airtel Money network processed over $120 billion in annualized transaction value and mobile money revenue contributed 19.2% of total Group revenue, up from 14.6% in the previous quarter.
“Having visited most of our OpCos since I joined Airtel Africa, I am encouraged by the scale of the opportunity available across our markets in both the GSM and mobile money business. A key priority for us is to look for new opportunities to further grow our business especially in the enterprise, fibre and data centre businesses across our footprint in Africa,” said Airtel Africa’s Chief executive officer Sunil Taldar.
“Airtel has initiated a comprehensive cost optimization programme across the Group and we have already seen success in this project, with savings arising in network and distribution costs, and continued opportunities as contract renegotiations continue. A strong capital structure is critical to enabling our ambitions and future proofing our ambitious growth targets.
The growth opportunity across our markets remains compelling and we continue to focus on margin improvement as indicated in our financial year 2024 results.”
