Airtel Africa’s road to profitability

Airtel Africa’s operation turned profitable the first time in 2018. The strong data revenue growth is the result of increased mobile broadband coverage. Airtel’s broadband RANs nearly doubled between June 2017 and September 2018 (Figure 4).

Airtel Africa’s strong results are remarkable as voice revenue, minutes per subscriber and overall minutes on its network all increased. Data revenues, per subscriber and overall MBs on its network increased even faster (Figures 1-3).

Airtel Africa demonstrates that minutes sold to customers depends more on network infrastructure and pricing in relation to competitors than other factors. It also demonstrates that expanding network coverage and focusing on mobile broadband is profitable in Africa.