Bharti Airtel's Africa business has reported a net profit of $83 million for the quarter ended March this year, owing to increased data consumption and rise in transaction volume on Airtel Money platform.
It had posted a loss of $49 million in the same quarter previous year.
Revenues grew 6% to $781 million during January-March this year from $736 million in the corresponding period last year.
Net profit was $123 million in the preceding October-December quarter but was impacted by an exceptional loss of $7 million on account network modernisation across various OPCOs (operating companies).
Airtel Africa is planning an initial public offering, but the final date is yet to be finalised. It has already raised $1.45 billion as pre-IPO private placement from firms including Qatar Investment Authority, Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singtel and SoftBank Group International to reduce its net debt to $4 billion at March-end from $7.76 billion a year back.
The company in its quarterly report said it has announced an intended IPO at London Stock Exchange during the year 2019-20 and activities relating to the IPO have been initiated.
Airtel Africa has about 99 million users with operations in 14 countries.
For the year ended March 2019, Airtel Africa posted a profit of $412 million against a loss of $138 million a year ago. Revenue grew 5.73% to $3,077 million in 2018-19 from $2,910 million in 2017-18, the company said.
Data usage per customer during the March quarter stood at 1,375 MB as compared to 963 MB in the corresponding quarter last year, up 42.7%. The data customers increased by 5.1 million to 30.0 million, which is 30.4% of the total customer base, against 27.9% in the year-ago quarter. Total minutes on the network during the quarter grew 18.3% to 52.9 billion.
Airtel Money customer base increased 24% on-year to 14.2 million, boosting the total transaction value on the Airtel Money platform by 22% to $6.9 billion. Airtel Money revenues stood at $70 million in the March quarter against $68 million in the previous quarter, a growth of 3.4%.
Average revenue per user (Arpu), a key matrix for profitability, declined 3.1% year on year to $2.7. Voice Arpu declined 7.2% while data Arpu grew 6.8%.
Total expenses grew 4% to $593 million for the year mainly due to higher selling and marketing and depreciation costs. Net finance cost declined $71 million from $121 million a year ago.
Airtel Africa has appointed Global banks comprising J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, Absa Group Ltd, Barclays Bank PLC, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs International and Standard Bank Group for an intended IPO on International Stock Exchange.
Bharti Airtel will announce its financial results for full year and fourth quarter on May 6.
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