Chief executive officer’s review
Our chief executive officer, Sunil Taldar, reviews a year in which Airtel Africa delivered record operational and financial performance while continuing to invest in the opportunity to grow sustainably and transform lives.
Sunil Taldar
Chief executive officer
Q1.
Airtel Africa delivered record growth in 2025/26. How will you ensure that the Group’s growth is sustainable?
Everyone at Airtel Africa should be very proud of achieving very strong constant currency revenue growth and underlying EBITDA margin improvement this year, among a range of other strong financial and operational results. This performance is a tribute to our teams’ entrepreneurial mindset and dedication to improving the experience of customers. Their focused execution of our strategy has delivered these strong results – and created a broad foundation for further success.
The sheer scale of the opportunity in our markets – which continues to expand – gives me confidence that we can keep building on that foundation. The young, growing populations in our 14 markets have an incredible appetite for data, voice and mobile money services – an appetite which continues to grow. People in Africa want to transform their lives through digitalisation, connection and financial empowerment. We can help them – and grow sustainably while we do so. That means continuing the focused execution of our strategy, and sustained investment in enhancing customer experience, so we can realise the huge opportunity ahead of us, as we have this year.
Q2.
Enhancing the customer experience is at the heart of your strategy. Why does this drive growth?
Customer experience is more critical than ever. As our markets mature, our growth will continue to come from winning and, especially, retaining customers through the quality and convenience of our services, so that we deepen and broaden their relationship with us and build new use cases for our products.
This year we grew our customer base by 10.5% to 183.5 million, with particularly strong growth in our mobile money customer base of 21.3%. And these customers are taking fuller advantage of the services we offer, with data usage per customer growing by 27.7%, while mobile money transaction value per customer increased by 14.4% in constant currency.
These increases underline the strength of demand in our markets. But they also demonstrate the importance of investing in delivering a constantly-improving service at every point of contact with our customers.
Q3.
How did you improve customer experience in 2025/26?
This year we enhanced speed and capacity through our highest-ever investment in our networks, adding over 3,250 new sites and 3,200km of additional fibre, while deploying ground-breaking new technologies to improve the quality of existing coverage (see Strategy in action). We also made transformative investments in our distribution channels, increasing the number of exclusive infrastructure outlets to 117,000.
Alongside these advances in physical infrastructure – which connect and empower people in underserved communities – we’ve stepped up customers’ digital experience. We gave our MyAirtel app a significant refresh, incorporating AI tools to make customer journeys simpler and more intuitive. Our home broadband business – which continued to perform strongly this year – is focused on meeting customer needs for data resilience as well as speed.
In addition, we’re exploring innovative partnerships to expand our offer further. In December 2025, we announced a partnership with SpaceX to introduce Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellite connectivity across all our markets, enabling data access in areas without existing terrestrial coverage. And in August 2025 we signed a strategic infrastructure-sharing agreement with Vodacom Group in several key markets, which will initially focus on sharing fibre networks and tower infrastructure to accelerate the rollout of digital services and connect more people.
Q4.
Airtel Money grew strongly in 2025/26. Is the mobile money opportunity evolving?
The opportunity for Airtel Money is very compelling, both in the transformational social impact of financial empowerment, and as a growth driver. Our markets remain significantly underbanked, and demand for financial services is accelerating. Airtel Money continues to go through a step change in reach and ambition, helping customers make the journey from cash-based economies into the digital world. Airtel Money’s total processed value (TPV) grew by 35.2% to $196bn – driven by more customers, using mobile money in more ways. Mobile money revenue reached $1.35bn, an increase of 28.4% in constant currency.
The potential remains enormous. We’re rapidly building an entire ecosystem for mobile money in which use cases include overdrafts, term loans, savings products and a virtual global pay card, as well as a range of merchant services. This is underpinned by a growing distribution network and strong, secure IT platforms. Our work to enhance MyAirtel app is a key part of this. In 2025/26, total processed value on the MyAirtel app grew 80% increase year-on-year led by 74% increase in monthly transacting users over last year.
Airtel Money’s scale, growth profile and distinct business model means the business is well positioned for a standalone listing. Over the past year, we have made good progress towards this objective, and, subject to market conditions, we intend to undertake an IPO in the second half of 2026.
Q5.
Were there significant developments or challenges in your operating environment in 2025/26?
For most of the year we operated in a broadly favourable environment. Tariff adjustments combined with customer base growth of 9.4% in Nigeria, our largest market, supported revenue growth, and currency appreciation in several markets contributed to higher revenues in reported currency.
Towards the end of 2025/26, we began to feel inflationary headwinds as a result of the disruption of global supply chains following the conflict in the Middle East. We are carefully monitoring the implications for direct impacts on our costs, especially fuel costs, and indirect impacts, for example on the budgets of customers and the cost and availability of smartphones.
Uncertainty of this kind reinforces our commitment to cost optimisation across the business, which continued throughout 2025/26, and to our long-term strategic programme of increasing our renewable energy mix through investment in solar and battery solutions. We’re also transitioning diesel-generator-dependent sites to the electricity grid – we converted 390 more infrastructure sites from off-grid to on-grid power this year, in addition to 500 converted in 2024/25.
Q6.
Airtel Africa made record investments in 2025/26. What impact will they have?
We’re investing in Africa’s future, and the future of our communities, as well as in the opportunity we see ahead. The strength of our performance this year meant that we revised our capex guidance from an initial $725m-$750m, eventually delivering $884m of investment in areas where the potential for growth is strongest.
We expect those investments to continue to create value – for our shareholders, of course, but also for all the stakeholders on whom we rely. Sustainability is the foundation of our strategy – our work this year is described in our separate Sustainability Report 2026 – and our continued investment reinforces our commitment to sustainable growth and our corporate purpose going hand in hand. Day after day, year after year, we connect more people to the opportunities of digital and financial inclusion, and deepen and broaden the benefits they experience – continuing our track record of transforming lives.
Sunil Taldar
Chief executive officer
1
Our markets remain significantly underbanked, and demand for financial services is accelerating. Airtel Money continues to go through a step change in reach and ambition, helping customers make the journey from cash-based economies into the digital world.
2
1
People in Africa want to transform their lives through digitalisation, connection and financial empowerment. We can help them – and grow sustainably while we do so. That means continuing the focused execution of our strategy, and sustained investment in enhancing customer experience, so we can realise the huge opportunity ahead of us.
2
Sunil Taldar
Chief executive officer
49.5%
smartphone penetration (+4.7% vs 2024/25)
48.5%
increase in data traffic vs 2024/25
35.2%
increase in total processed value for Airtel Money (in constant currency)