Telecommunications and mobile money services provider Airtel Africa (AAF.L), on Thursday, reported Q1 profit after tax of $31 million versus a loss of $151 million incurred a year ago.
Profit attributable to owners of the company amounted to $7 million compared to a loss of $170 million last year. On a per share basis, earnings before exceptional items declined 41.4% to 2.3c from 3.9c earned in the prior year period.
Revenue for the quarter amounted to $1.156 billion, down 16.1%, compared to the previous year's $1.377 billion, reflecting constant currency growth of 19.0%.
Group mobile services revenue grew by 17.4% in constant currency, with voice revenue growth of 9.5% and data revenues increasing by 26.4% over the period.
Total customer base grew by 8.6% to 155.4 million. Data customer penetration continued to rise, driving a 13.4% increase in data customers to 64.4 million. Data usage per customer increased by 25.1% to 6.2 GBs, with smartphone penetration increasing 4.7% to reach 41.7%.
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