In October 2021, the Airtel Africa Board approved an upgrade to the progressive dividend policy as a result of continued strong business performance and significant progress made in reducing the leverage ratio. The new policy aims to grow the dividend annually by a mid to high-single digit percentage from a new base of 5 cents per share for FY'22, with a continued focus to further strengthen the balance sheet.
Other final highlights include:
Reported revenue grew by 20.6% for the year, to $4,714m, and 17.8% for Q4. Constant currency underlying revenue grew 23.3% for the year and 19.1% in Q4.
Constant currency underlying revenue growth was strong in all regions: Nigeria up 27.7%, East Africa up 22.7% and Francophone Africa up 17.2%; and across all key services, with revenue in Voice up 15.4%, Data up 34.6% and Mobile Money up 34.9%.
Underlying EBITDA of $2,311m, grew by 29.0% in reported currency.
Underlying EBITDA margin of 49.0%, increased by 294 basis points.
Operating profit grew by 37.2% to $1,535m in reported currency.
Profit after tax grew by 82.0% to $755m.
Basic EPS of 16.8 cents, an increase of 86.5%. EPS before exceptional items of 16.0 cents (FY'21: 8.2 cents).
Operating free cash flow of $1,655m, up 40.5%, with net cash generated from operating activities up 20.7% to $2,011m. Over the last twelve months the business has repaid nearly $1.4bn of debt at HoldCo as a result of strong cash upstreaming across its OpCos and proceeds from minority investments in mobile money and tower sales.
Leverage ratio improved to 1.3x from 2.0x in the prior year, with $1bn of debt now held at HoldCo (FY'21: $2.4bn).
Customer base of 128.4 million, up 8.7%, with increased penetration across mobile data (customer base up 15.2%) and mobile money services (customer base up 20.7%). NIN/SIM regulations in Nigeria impacted customer growth in H1, but then returned to strong growth, adding 4 million customers in Nigeria during H2'22.
