Airtel Africa’s vast operations provide telecoms and mobile money services to almost 118.2 million customers in 14 sub-Saharan countries. It is empowering the financially excluded and is modernising African digital infrastructure, playing an important role in enabling these nations to realise their potential in the decades ahead.
Its promising Mobile Money solution sees it play the role of bank to the previously ‘unbanked’. These mobile money services are vital in Africa, where communities can be isolated by large distances and underdeveloped infrastructure. Airtel has recently sold parts of this higher margin business in deals that value it at $2.6bn.
Over the past five years, Airtel has transformed itself into a profitable company with entrenched market positions exposed to strong structural growth trends. The company is among the leaders in all of its markets but competition is increasing and there is still plenty of work left to do. Mobile and digital penetration in Africa is still low. Populations are young, and growing fast. Millions of people are still unbanked or financially excluded.
The growth to be seen in Africa and its many thriving economies in the decades ahead will likely outstrip the UK, so is Airtel Africa a good way to gain exposure to these exciting markets?
Profile
What are the company's principal business activities, how does it generate its revenues?
Airtel Africa (LON:AAF) operates across 14 sub-Saharan African markets with substantial potential to grow its voice, data and mobile money services.
- Voice - pre- and postpaid wireless voice services, international roaming and fixed-line telephone services.
- Data - data communications services, including 2G, 3G and 4G in all 14 markets.
- Airtel Money - mobile money services, including payment services, microloans, savings and international money transfers.
- Other services- fixed-line telephony, home broadband, data centres.
Business model
The group has strong market positions, is often the market leader, and has the scale required to reinvest in its substantial operations, regularly notching up more than half a billion dollars in annual capex.
With spectrum assets in every country and multiple layers of data capacity, it is hard for new competitors to rival Airtel’s scale. Its estate includes:
- 25,368 network towers, data capacity of 12,000+ terabytes per day, and more than 54,500km of fibre across a modernised network offering 2G, 3G and 4G.
- A network of c2,800 regional and international partners offering financial and money transfer…
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