Airtel Africa Announces $100 Million Share Buy-Back Program Amid Robust Q3 Performance

Olusegun Ogunsanya, Group Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, recently shared a promising trading update, unveiling plans for a significant share buy-back program totaling up to $100 million. The initiative is scheduled to kick off in early March 2024 and will span a 12-month period.

We continue to be well positioned to deliver on the attractive growth opportunities our markets offer and despite the challenge of rising diesel prices, ongoing currency devaluation and inflationary pressures across some of our markets, we remain focussed on margin resilience.

Olusegun Ogunsanya, Group chief executive officer, Airtel Africa

Ogunsanya highlighted the company’s robust operational performance and its strong positioning to seize attractive growth opportunities in the market. Despite facing challenges such as rising diesel prices, ongoing currency devaluation, and inflationary pressures across certain regions, Airtel Africa remains committed to ensuring margin resilience.

In the third quarter of the nine-month period ending on December 31, 2023, the company reported key performance indicators (KPIs) that underscore its continued growth:

• The total customer base experienced a substantial 9.1% growth, reaching 151.2 million. Notably, mobile data and mobile money services played a pivotal role in driving a 22.4% surge in data customers (62.7 million) and a 19.5% increase in mobile money customers (37.5 million).
• Airtel Africa witnessed a constant currency ARPU growth of 10.0%, primarily fueled by increased usage across all customer segments.
• Mobile money transactions saw a remarkable 41.3% increase in constant currency, culminating in a Q3’24 annualized transaction value of $116 billion in reported currency.