Airtel Africa Opens Its FY 2026/27 With $1.85 Billion Quarter

Airtel Africa brought in $1.853 billion in revenue for the three months ending 30 June 2026, a 31 percent rise from the same time last year. After-tax profit grew 27 percent to $198 million.

The group works across 14 countries in Africa, and growth came from all of them. But the clearest signal in these numbers is this: the old business and the new business are moving at different speeds. Voice revenue — the traditional heartbeat of any telco — grew 20 percent to $640 million. Data revenue grew faster, up 36.5 percent to $750 million. Mobile money grew fastest of all, up 38.9 percent to $404 million.

More people connected, and those already connected used far more. The total customer base reached 189 million, up 11.6 percent. The number of data users grew to 87.3 million. Each data customer used an average of 10.6GB per month, up from 7.8GB a year ago. Overall data traffic on the network jumped 56.3 percent. More than half of all customers, 51 percent, now use smartphones, up from 46 percent a year ago.

Airtel Money, the group’s mobile money arm, had a strong quarter. Its customer base grew 23.3 percent to 56.5 million people. The total value of transactions processed through the platform hit $245 billion on an annualised basis, up 51.5 percent. The group also confirmed it plans to list Airtel Money on the London Stock Exchange later this year, subject to regulatory approval. Chief executive Sunil Taldar said the move is meant to “unlock the long-term value of one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms” and connect it to a wider pool of international investors.

By region, Nigeria led the way with revenue up 29.8 percent. To put that in context, in late 2025, Airtel raised its prices in Nigeria. Higher prices naturally push revenue up, so last year’s numbers got a boost from that. By this quarter, that boost is gone. Prices are now the new normal. So the growth is coming from the business itself, not a pricing tailwind. East Africa, the group’s biggest region, grew 17.8 percent. Francophone Africa grew 18 percent.

The group spent heavily on its network. Capital expenditure came in at $389 million, more than three times the $121 million spent in the same quarter last year. Over 920 new network sites were built, the most in any first quarter in the company’s history. The fibre network now covers 82,100 kilometres. The company said it is spending ahead of demand, to be ready for growth rather than playing catch-up.

That spending did not hurt profitability. EBITDA – earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a standard measure of operating profit -rose 36.6 percent to $928 million. The margin reached 50.1 percent, meaning roughly half of every dollar earned stayed as profit. Cash from operations grew 38.3 percent to $786 million. Debt relative to earnings improved, with leverage dropping from 2.2x to 1.7x

There was one unexpected cost this quarter, Airtel Africa paid $37 million to settle a legal dispute in one of its businesses. They were upfront about it and disclosed it clearly in their results. If you remove that one-off payment, the company actually earned more per share than the headline number suggests — 5.4 cents per share versus the reported 4.4 cents.

Taldar described the quarter as “another pleasing performance,” adding: “We are streamlining customer journeys, increasing digital adoption and harnessing data and AI to improve service delivery and support a strong, sustainable growth profile.” He flagged one risk ahead: rising energy costs driven by global instability, which he said would put some pressure on margins in the coming months.