Airtel Nigeria’s total revenue grew by 23 per cent in constant currency to $528 million, the Company’s financial report for the quarter ended June 2023, has revealed.
The company said the constant currency revenue growth was driven by both customer base growth of 4.8 per cent and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) growth of 16.1 per cent, largely driven by higher data revenue growth.
Amid the increase in revenue, Airtel Africa said it recorded a foreign exchange loss of $471 million in the quarter under review due to the devaluation of the Nigerian naira.
It attributed the loss to the unification of the exchange rate by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which pushed the exchange rate from N460 per dollar to N790 per dollar in June.
The group’s revenue increased by nine per cent to $1.37 billion from the $1.25 billion it recorded in the same period for 2022.
Airtel used an exchange rate of N502 per dollar to prepare its financial result. If the closing rate of N752 per dollar were used to calculate its financial results, revenues would have slumped to $1.20 billion representing a 4.4 per cent decline.
On data consumption, the report revealed that Airtel Nigeria recorded a surge in data consumption as average usage by customers on 4G increased to 10.7GB per month, while disclosing that the increase in data consumption by 4G users represents a 44.4 per cent jump when compared with 7.4GB per month data usage recorded at the same time last year.
Data consumption for non-4G users on Airtel, also increased from an average of 4.6GB per month last year to 5.7GB per month as of June this year, representing a 24.5 per cent increase.
Airtel averred that the increase in data consumption pushed its data revenue for its Q1 2023 (April-June 2023) to $228 million (about N176,7 billion) from $210 million (N162.7 billion) recorded in the same period last year.
The company however attributed the increase in data usage and the resultant jump in data revenue to its expansion of 4G coverage.
“Our continued 4G network rollout has resulted in nearly 100 per cent of all our sites in Nigeria delivering 4G. For the Q1’23 period, 48.5 per cent of our data customer base were 4G users, contributing to 84.0 per cent of total data usage. 4G data usage per customer reached 10.7 GB per month, an increase of 44.4 per cent (from 7.4 GB per customer per month in Q1’23),” it said.
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