IN SHORT: Airtel Africa reported FY2026 profit after tax of $813 million, up 147% from $328 million in FY2025, on revenue of $6.42 billion, up 29.5%. Data became the largest single revenue component for the first time at $2.5 billion. The customer base reached 183.5 million. Airtel Money processed an annualised $215 billion in transaction value in Q4. The planned Airtel Money IPO, previously targeted for H1 2026, has been pushed to H2 due to market conditions from the Hormuz conflict. East Africa is now the group’s largest region by revenue at $3.02 billion.
Airtel Africa has posted the strongest results in its history, with profit tripling and data overtaking voice as its largest revenue stream for the first time, while the long-anticipated Airtel Money IPO that investors were counting on has been delayed by the same Middle East conflict that is reshaping African energy markets.
The FY2026 results, for the year ended March 31 and released on May 8, represent a complete reversal of the foreign exchange losses and currency pressures that compressed the company’s reported performance in FY2024 and FY2025.
- The profit recovery is driven by three simultaneous tailwinds. Operating profit improved as higher data and mobile money revenues flowed through to margins. Derivative and foreign exchange gains of $127 million contributed to the bottom line, a reversal from $179 million in FX losses the prior year. And Nigeria’s tariff adjustment in early 2025, which allowed Airtel to raise mobile service prices to reflect the true cost of providing services in a post-devaluation environment, generated 47.5% constant currency revenue growth in the country. Together these three factors transformed a $328 million profit year into an $813 million one without requiring any fundamental improvement in the competitive position of the underlying business.
- Data’s emergence as the largest revenue component, at $2.5 billion against mobile services of $2.8 billion in total, marks the structural pivot that Airtel has been signalling for three years. Data customers grew 14.8% to 84.2 million. Average monthly data usage per customer increased from 7 GB to 8.9 GB. Smartphone penetration reached 49.5% across the group’s 183.5 million customer base. The network investment is working: 3,250 new sites were deployed and 3,200 km of fibre was added during the year, expanding the group’s fibre network to 81,900 km.
- Airtel Money processed annualised transaction value of $215 billion in Q4 FY2026, a 49% increase year on year. The customer base grew 21.3% to 54.1 million, and active transacting customers grew 74%. These are numbers that validate the strategic logic of the planned IPO: Airtel Money is a mobile financial services business growing faster than almost any other at scale in Africa, generating revenue that is increasingly independent of voice and SMS decline. At the Bloomberg-reported pre-delay valuation of approximately $10 billion, the Airtel Money IPO would have been one of Africa’s largest fintech listings ever.
- The IPO delay is straightforward to explain and frustrating for investors who have been anticipating it. CEO Sunil Taldar: “Market conditions following recent geopolitical developments have affected the anticipated timing of the Airtel Money IPO. We have made good progress and remain committed to the listing as market conditions allow, with the intention of undertaking the IPO in the second half of 2026.” The Hormuz conflict has disrupted global capital markets through elevated risk premiums, rising energy costs and investor uncertainty that makes a major African fintech IPO difficult to price and place in the current environment.
- East Africa’s emergence as the group’s largest revenue region at $3.02 billion, ahead of Nigeria at $1.6 billion and Francophone Africa at $1.79 billion, is the data point that most directly affects East African market observers. Kenya’s Airtel is investing aggressively: the 44 MW Nxtra data centre at Tatu City is on track for a Q1 2027 launch. The centre will be one of East Africa’s largest hyperscale facilities and will serve both Airtel’s own infrastructure needs and third-party cloud and colocation clients.
- The Hormuz conflict’s secondary impact on Airtel’s cost base is the warning in an otherwise positive set of results. The company explicitly noted that higher energy prices from the geopolitical conflict will “likely lead to increased cost inflation, resulting in EBITDA margin pressure in the near-term.” African telecoms operators depend heavily on diesel generators for base station power in markets where grid reliability is insufficient. Every dollar Brent rises above the budget assumption adds directly to the diesel fuel bill for thousands of base stations across 14 countries.
Group EBITDA margin reached 49.3% for the full year, peaking at 50.3% in Q4. Capex was $884 million for FY2026; FY2027 guidance is approximately $1.1 billion. The board recommended a final dividend of 4.26 cents per share, bringing the full-year total to 7.1 cents, up 9.2%.
The Bigger Picture: Airtel Africa’s FY2026 numbers are a case study in how African telcos can generate extraordinary returns when three things align: currency stabilisation, regulatory tariff normalisation and digital adoption acceleration. All three aligned in FY2026. The FY2027 question is whether the Hormuz cost pressure on diesel erodes the margin gains, whether the naira holds at its current level or deteriorates again, and whether the Airtel Money IPO can be completed in a market environment that remains difficult. The underlying business is stronger than it has ever been. The external environment has rarely been more uncertain.
Source: Techish Kenya / Business Standard / CEO East Africa, May 8-9, 2026
