* Its customer base grows to 54.1 million up by 21.3% year-on-year across Airtel Africa’s operations in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa
By Duncan Mlanjira
The financial performance for year ended March 31, 2026, one contributing factors is Airtel Money, which continues to scale and deepen engagement, with an expanded customer base of 54.1 million — up by 21.3% year-on-year across Airtel Africa’s operations in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
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In his remarks over the overall performance, Airtel Africa Chief Executive Officer, Sunil Taldar, maintained that Airtel Money made strong progress across digital adoption, ecosystem expansion and product innovation over the financial year, that assisted the company to deliver “a very strong performance across both operating and financial metrics.
He added that this reflects the attractive industry fundamentals and structural growth drivers across Airtel Africa’s footprint, as the leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services posted profit after tax of US$813 million, which is an improvement from US$328 million in the prior period.
“Higher profit after tax in the current period was driven by higher operating profit and derivative and foreign exchange gains of US$127 million compared to US$179 million derivative and foreign exchange losses in the prior period.”
Sunil Taldar
The company achieved a strong 24.0% growth in constant currency revenues in FY’26, whose reported currency revenues increased by 29.5% to US$6,415 million, “reflecting attractive industry fundamentals and focused operational execution, further supported by tariff adjustments in Nigeria and macroeconomic tailwinds”.
“Francophone Africa and Nigeria constant currency growth was particularly encouraging, increasing by 17.1% and 47.5% respectively. In constant currency, the mobile services segment grew by 22.6%, with data revenues – now the largest component of Group revenues — increasing by 35.2%, while mobile money continues to see strong operating momentum, up by 28.4%.
“In Q4’26, constant currency revenues grew by 22.3% as Nigerian tariff benefits partially lapped during the quarter.
“The strong revenue performance and continued benefits from our cost efficiency programme resulted in underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margins of 49.3%, with all-time high margins of 50.3% in Q4’26 (Q4’25: 47.3%).
“Underlying EBITDA of US$3,162m grew by 37.2% in reported currency and 30.4% in constant currency,” says the financial report, that shows “a year of standout growth powered by strong fundamentals and disciplined execution”.
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On the trading update CEO Taldar added that “adoption of new digital technologies and AI has been pivotal in unlocking growth opportunities and driving efficiencies, with wide-ranging rollouts enhancing customer experience through site-level network optimisation, streamlined onboarding and accelerating the rollout of myAirtel app, a single-touchpoint customer interface designed to streamline service adoption and deliver a more intuitive digital journey.
“This focused strategy has contributed to a further 22% increase in smartphone customers to 91 million, driving an almost 50% increase in data traffic and, together with another strong Airtel Money performance, supported a step-up in constant-currency revenue growth to 24.0%.”
Through Airtel Money, Taldar observed that “customer engagement continues to deepen, with app transacting customers up 74% and annualised TPV of over US$215 billion in Q4’26.
“Market conditions following recent geopolitical developments have affected the anticipated timing of the Airtel Money IPO. We have made good progress and remain committed to the listing as market conditions allow, with the intention of undertaking the IPO in the second half of 2026.”
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