Airtel Africa Plc

Reported group revenue was $1.85 billion, growing over 21% in constant currency and 31% in reported currency. EBITDA was $928 million, up 24.4% in constant currency and 36.6% in reported currency, with EBITDA margin at 51.1% and up more than 200 basis points year over year. Excluding exceptional items, EPS was $0.54, up 57% year over year; basic EPS was $0.044, up 27.3%. Capex was $389 million in the quarter versus $121 million a year ago. Management kept full-year capex guidance at $1.1 billion and said Airtel Money IPO timing remains in 2026, subject to market conditions, with London as the preferred listing venue.

Sunil Taldar framed the quarter as broad-based and execution-driven, saying demand remains strong across voice, data, and mobile money, supported by continued investment in the network and customer experience. He highlighted Nigeria, home broadband, B2B, data centers, and 5G as major growth opportunities, and said the company is investing aggressively ahead of demand rather than waiting for capacity constraints. His tone was confident and expansionary, with repeated emphasis on structural demand and long-term upside.

Kamal Dua emphasized that leverage remains modest at 0.5x and that Airtel has actively optimized its debt portfolio, cutting the effective interest rate by 282 bps to 10.1% at quarter end. He said higher fuel costs are still flowing through, with the margin impact previously indicated at roughly 2.5% to 3% on EBITDA margins, about half of which hit in Q1 and the rest expected to follow in Q2. He also noted some slight softening in fuel prices in Nigeria could bring marginal relief in Q3, but Q2 pricing is already locked by contract.

Analysts pressed on Nigeria growth versus peers, diesel cost pressure, capex discipline, M&A, the airtime-advance disruption in Nigeria, tower-sharing exposure, satellite competition, and the impact of Indus Towers entering Africa. Management said Nigeria still has significant penetration, upgrade, home broadband, B2B, and data center opportunities, and that the airtime-advance issue had only a minimal group impact and should not affect Q2. On satellites, Airtel called the technology complementary, citing enterprise connectivity, backhaul savings, and direct-to-device services that use existing 4G/5G handsets. On M&A, management said it will consider sizable, attractive opportunities across markets and that the balance sheet gives flexibility.