Investing in opportunity – for our customers, our employees and our business

Since its foundation, Airtel Africa has harnessed the power of telecoms, data and mobile money services to transform lives in sub-Saharan Africa by unlocking the enormous growth opportunity of our 14 markets. With the expansion of our network and an enhanced service offering we bring more people and businesses into the digital economy, connect the unconnected, and extend financial inclusion.

Strong growth, powerful social impact

This year’s strong financial and operational performance demonstrates the ongoing demand for our services. We added more customers than ever before, reaching a total customer base of 183.5 million. Revenues for data and Airtel Money, our strongest growth drivers, grew at 35.2% and 28.4% respectively in constant currency, contributing to record Group revenue of $6,415m.

This growth equates to real social impact that enhances lives across communities and whole economies. We now enable coverage for 81.9% of people in our markets. We reached 54.1 million Airtel Money customers in 2025/26, an increase of 21.3% this year, rapidly accelerating financial inclusion – and 44.1% of our mobile money customers are now women. And our business directly creates employment, with 2.4 million people earning through working as Airtel Money agents in our distribution network.

Our results highlight the scale of the opportunity that still lies ahead. The populations of our markets are young and growing fast – and they want a prosperous digital future. At the same time, a growing middle class and wide merchant ecosystem are reinforcing demand for high-quality customer experience.

Airtel Africa is well placed to create value from this opportunity, because of our outstanding employees and customer-focused culture, our proven, well-executed growth strategy, and our strong track record of disciplined investment.

People first

A huge part of our strong performance this year is thanks to the dedication and expertise of the Airtel Africa team. Wherever I visit across the Group, I see real entrepreneurial spirit among our people and a team that is wholly committed to enhancing customers’ experience of our services, improving their neighbours’ lives, and growing our business. On behalf of the Board I thank them for their immense contribution to building a shared, inclusive culture. The Board has had a particular focus on employee engagement this year, and was delighted to approve the launch of a new, all-employee share plan, which we believe will further reward employees for their continued dedication to our customers.

Sustainable commitment to customers and community

Customer experience is at the heart of our growth strategy under Sunil Taldar and his leadership team. Combined with rigorous cost optimisation and excellent operational execution, this has delivered strong margin performance in 2025/26 – but it is also future-focused. As our markets evolve, customers increasingly value high-quality, convenient, seamless services and look to use new and better products in telecoms, data and mobile money. Airtel Africa is focused on improving every point of the customer experience – from the groundbreaking improvements in network quality and capacity as described in our strategy, to our refreshed and expanded distribution network, to the rapid improvement in our myAirtel app, incorporating AI to enhance user satisfaction, as described in strategy in action.

​Our business strategy is underpinned by our sustainability ambitions, which contribute to six of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We invite stakeholders to visit our Sustainability Report 2026 for a full account of our commitments and progress. The Board’s role in upholding our environmental, social and governance responsibilities is described in The Board’s focus in 2025/26.

Investing in the future of Africa

As previously announced, I will step down as Chair at the conclusion of the July 2026 AGM. While this report – like Airtel Africa itself – looks forward at the opportunity ahead, in my last report as Chair I would like to touch briefly on the Company’s journey since our listing in 2019, and in particular on our track record of investment.

Year-on-year, Airtel Africa has consistently invested in infrastructure, people and technology. In 2019/20, in our first annual report after listing, we had 22,909 infrastructure sites in our network, with 64.7% providing 4G coverage, and over 43,000km of fibre. By the end of 2025/26, those figures had grown to 40,378 sites, of which 39,770 are 4G enabled (and 3,116 5G), and 81,900km of fibre. Multibrand agents in our distribution network has grown from 337,000 in 2019/20 to 2.4 million in 2025/26. In the past five years our customer base has increased by 65 million, our Airtel Money transaction value has risen at a CAGR of 35.6%, and our revenues have increased by $2.5bn to $6.4bn for the year ended 31 March 2026.

​At the same time, we have invested in the communities we serve. Our work to support education – a long-term commitment of which I am especially proud, and which is now carried out by The Airtel Africa Foundation in partnership with UNICEF – has connected 3,296 schools to the internet free of charge. Furthermore, under this partnership more than 38,800 teachers were trained and more than 2.1 million students were connected to internet during the year across the continent.

I know this investment in Africa’s infrastructure and people will continue. Capex in 2025/26 increased 31.9% to a record $884m, and guidance is approximately $1.1bn for 2026/27. I am confident it will unlock growth and opportunity for our customers, and for our business.

As described in the Committee report, Gopal Vittal will succeed me as Chair. Gopal shares my confidence in the future of Airtel Africa, my excitement about the scale of the opportunity ahead, and my gratitude to all our stakeholders. It has been an enormous privilege to serve as Chair, and I would like to thank all stakeholders personally for their vital work in helping Airtel Africa to deliver another year of sustainable, profitable growth and transformational impact. 

Sunil Bharti Mittal
Chair