Airtel Africa (LSE:AAF), the FTSE 100 mobile communications group, has published its results for the quarter ended 30 June (Q1 2026), the first of its current financial year. And it continues to grow. It now has 70% more customers than when it listed in March 2019.
It’s currently the second-largest telecoms operator in Africa providing voice, data and mobile money services to residential and commercial customers in 14 countries.
How’s it doing?
As most of Airtel Africa’s revenue is earned in local currencies, its results can sometimes be difficult to interpret. That’s because its turnover is converted into dollars for the purposes of the group’s accounts. And many of the currencies in which it invoices have been highly volatile over the past year or so.
For example — compared to Q1 2025 – reported quarterly revenue in Nigeria (the group’s biggest market) increased by 29.8%. But when currency fluctuations are removed, it went up 48.9%. At group level, the impact of exchange rates is less pronounced. Compared to Q1 2025, revenue was 22.4% higher, or 24.9% more on a constant currency basis.
However, customer numbers aren’t affected by these movements. These increased by 9% to 169.4m. Before exceptional items, earnings per share went up by 48.6%. And the group’s operating margin improved by 2.76 percentage points.
Investors were impressed. Airtel Africa’s shares closed the day 7.3% higher.
Strong market fundamentals
It strikes me that it’s a case of being in the right place at the right time. Africa’s economy is forecast to grow by 3.5-4% in 2025. And its population is expanding by 2.5% a year. Presently, over 60% living on the continent are under 25, a key demographic for the industry.
According to one industry body, there will be 200m more mobile subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. And mobile data traffic is expected to quadruple by 2028.
Challenges
But the group still faces some issues. As well as suffering from volatile currencies, Africa’s economies are prone to inflation. If price rises get out of control, it could be a double whammy. Firstly, it’s likely to reduce disposable incomes, which could affect growth. Secondly, rising costs are likely to damage earnings.
Also, telecoms infrastructure is expensive. The group’s net debt has increased from 1.6 times to 2.2 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) over the past year. Although it was marginally higher at the end of March.
However, to try and help mitigate the foreign exchange issue referred to earlier, 95% of Airtel Africa’s debt is now priced in local currencies.
On the other hand…
Personally, I think the group’s in a good position to continue its strong growth story. It recently signed a deal with SpaceX to roll out its high-speed Starlink satellite service in its 14 markets.
And it could also do well despite wider economic uncertainty. In many parts of Africa, mobiles are the only source of connectivity. This gives the sector a certain degree of protection during a slowdown.
And the recent announcement that it plans to spin-off of its mobile money services division could be lucrative. There’s been some speculation that the business could be worth close to $5bn (£3.7bn). The group’s current market-cap is £7.1bn.
For these reasons, I think it’s a stock for long-term growth investors to consider.
