Airtel Africa Hits Record Margins in H1 as Revenue Grows 28% and Customer Base Reaches 193.9 Million

Airtel Africa plc  has released its results for the half year ended 30 September 2026, reporting solid growth across its telecommunications and mobile money businesses. Reported revenue rose 28.2% to $3,823 million, while constant-currency revenue increased 20.8%, reflecting continued execution against structural demand for data and financial services across its 14 African markets.

The Group’s total customer base grew 11.6% to 193.9 million. Data customers rose 15% to 89.9 million, and mobile money customers increased 22.4% to 60.9 million. Smartphone penetration reached 51.6%, supporting higher data usage of 13.3 GB per smartphone customer (up from 10.1 GB). Constant-currency data ARPU grew 10.7%. Annualised mobile money total processed value reached $275 billion in the second quarter, up 36.5%.

Underlying EBITDA increased to $1,921 million (up 32.8% in reported currency and 23.5% in constant currency), with the margin at 50.3%. The second-quarter margin hit a record 50.4%. Profit after tax rose to $452 million from $376 million, despite $55 million in exceptional items related to an in-principle settlement in one subsidiary and Airtel Money IPO expenses. Basic EPS was 10.2 cents (8.3 cents previously); excluding exceptional items and lower foreign-exchange and derivative gains, EPS reached 11.8 cents from 6.9 cents.

Regional performance remained strong in constant currency: Nigeria grew 24.4% in Q2, Francophone Africa accelerated to 20.3%, and East Africa rose 18.6%. Mobile services revenue grew nearly 19% in constant currency, driven by 28% data revenue growth, while mobile money revenue grew 25.8% in constant currency.

Capital expenditure more than doubled to $657 million as the Group accelerated network investment, adding approximately 4,200 sites to expand coverage and capacity and support new services such as home broadband. Leverage improved to 1.6x from 2.1x. The Board declared an interim dividend of 3.1 cents per share (up 9.2%) and returned $108.7 million to shareholders via the share buyback programme.

Commenting on the results, Sunil Taldar, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“The recent IPO of Airtel Money represents a significant milestone for the Group. We retained our shareholding through the IPO and remain a long-term strategic shareholder, with significant exposure to Airtel Money’s future growth and value creation. Over the first half we have delivered another strong operating and financial performance, reflecting the depth of underlying demand across our markets and consistent execution of our strategy, with total customer growth remaining strong and stable at 11.6%. The investment case remains as compelling as ever, supported by favourable demographic and economic trends, strong demand for data and financial services, and smartphones on our network increasing to over 100 million, with substantial headroom for further adoption. We are increasingly leveraging AI across the business to deepen customer understanding, accelerate innovation, simplify customer journeys and strengthen the detection of fraud and emerging threats. Combined with our ability to utilise our network, distribution and customer relationships to develop new businesses, these structural drivers underpin our confidence in the Group’s long-term growth prospects.

Despite rising fuel costs continuing to exert inflationary pressure on our cost base, we delivered a record underlying EBITDA margin of 50.4% in Q2’27 through a combination of operational discipline, ongoing cost efficiency programmes and continued scale benefits. Looking ahead, margin performance will continue to be influenced by the macroeconomic environment, including its impact on fuel costs. Our confidence in the growth trajectory of the business and the significant long-term opportunity across our markets underpins our decision to accelerate investment. During the period, we increased the pace of network investment to expand capacity and enhance service quality, positioning the business to capture an increasing share of future growth.

Our mobile money business continues to deliver strong growth and remains a key driver of financial inclusion across our markets, supported by sustained customer acquisition, increasing transaction volumes and ongoing expansion of its product ecosystem. Our mobile money and mobile services businesses will continue to work closely together to capture shared growth opportunities, realise operational synergies and deliver enhanced value for customers across our markets.

Supported by a strong balance sheet and robust cash generation, we remain confident in the opportunities ahead. As more customers embrace digital services and financial inclusion, our continued focus on execution and customer experience positions us to deliver sustainable growth at scale and long-term value for shareholders.”

Airtel Africa provides mobile voice, data and mobile money services across 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria; East Africa: Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia; and Francophone Africa: Chad, DRC, Gabon, Madagascar, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Seychelles). The results were released via the London Stock Exchange RNS on 30 October 2026.