Airtel Africa Plc has reported a significant turnaround in earnings for the 2025 financial year, despite a revenue slowdown primarily driven by lower Nigerian revenue.
The company’s profit after tax (PAT) stood at $328.46 million, compared to a loss after tax of $89.20 million in the 2024 financial year.
Key highlights shows that Airtel Africa’s group revenue declined by 0.5% year on year to $4.96 billion, impacted by significant currency depreciation in Nigeria, Malawi, and Zambia.
The company reported an EPS of $0.06, compared to a loss per share of $0.04 in the 2024 financial year.
Mobile money revenue increased by 18.7% year on year, contributing 16.8% of total revenue, driven by an expanded Airtel Money distribution network and growth in customers.
EBITDA margin contracted by 228 basis points year on year to 46.5%, reflecting currency depreciation and high energy prices.
The board has proposed a final dividend of $0.04 per share, implying a dividend yield of 2.9% based on the closing price of N2,156.90 per share as of May 7, 2025.
Commenting on the performance, Sunil Taldar, chief executive officer, on the trading update: “We have reported another strong operating performance as our strategy continues to deliver against the significant opportunity that exists across our markets.
The focus on our refreshed strategy has seen continued investment in the network while also driving improvements in our digital platforms and offerings to further enhance the customer experience.
This has enabled increased digital inclusion with a further 20% growth in our smartphone customers to 74.4m, contributing to a 47.5% increase in data traffic over the year.
Furthermore, Airtel Money continues to support financial inclusion with customers increasing 17.3% to 44.6 million and an expanding ecosystem underpinning the $136bn transaction value, which increased 32% in constant currency.
An improving operating environment and focussed execution contributed to strong momentum in our financial results with constant currency revenue growth peaking at 23.2% in Q4’25.
Part of this acceleration in the last quarter has also been driven by the Nigerian tariff adjustments.
This accelerating revenue growth and cost optimisation programme has supported quarterly EBITDA margin expansion during the year.
Underlying EBITDA margins increased by 200bps from 45.3% in Q1’25 to 47.3% in Q4’25, and we remain focussed on further EBITDA margin improvements subject to macroeconomic stability.
This, combined with our robust capital structure and disciplined capital allocation, puts us in a strong position to continue investing in network capacity to deliver continued growth.
We are making significant progress in our preparations for the Airtel Money IPO and remain committed to this objective. However, we are also mindful of evolving market conditions.
Therefore, subject to these conditions, we anticipate a listing event in the first half of calendar year 2026.
The recent stability in the operating environment is encouraging, however we remain conscious of global developments that may impact our business. We will remain focussed on delivering our strategy to transform the lives of our customers and support economic prosperity across our markets. I want to say a particular thank-you to our customers, partners, governments and regulators for their support and our employees for their unrelenting contribution to the business.”
A look at regional performance, Nigeria revenue fell by 30.4% year on year, impacted by persistent naira depreciation.
However, in constant currency terms, revenue grew by 36.4% year on year, driven by growth in voice, data, and other revenue segments.
East Africa revenue grew by 13.6% year on year, supported by strong performances in voice, data, and other revenue segments.
Francophone Africa revenue increased by 7.2% year on year, driven by growth in data revenue.
According to market watchers Airtel Africa expects sustained revenue and profitability growth, supported by recent tariff adjustments in Nigeria, a relatively stable operating environment, expanding data and mobile money services, disciplined cost management, and reduced FX exposure.
