Mobile services

The mobile services market in sub-Saharan Africa continues to evolve and grow, driven in large part by young, growing populations seeking reliable voice and data experiences at the right price. There is still considerable untapped opportunity for growth through connecting new customers and the GSMA reported in 2024 that unique mobile subscribers and mobile internet users in sub-Saharan Africa are forecast to increase at CAGRs of 4.5% and 6.2% respectively to 2030.

We're working to close the 'usage gap' caused by the continent's low smartphone penetration relative to other regions, currently 57% compared to the global average of 82%. But there is also a clear opportunity to drive data usage by providing secure, high-quality, affordable experiences to existing smartphone owners.

This year, we continued to deepen and broaden the experience we offer our customers, responding to their feedback and listening closely to our customer focus groups. This included rapidly expanding our home broadband (HBB) offerings, upgrading our services and expanding the reach of our network, with 4G coverage now reaching 75.6% of the population and 5G sites in six and spectrum in seven markets. We also worked to increase access to 4G-enabled smartphones through handset subsidies and financing initiatives, bringing more people in semi-urban and rural areas into the digital ecosystem.

We grew our customer base by 10.5% to 183.5 million in 2025/26, with data usage increasing by 48.5%. This growth was underpinned by a focus on our exclusive distribution infrastructure, which expanded by 6.1% to 117,000 outlets, alongside improvements to our processes such as our new digital sales app for vendors. And we continued to look for new ways to improve connectivity for our customers – including through our agreement with SpaceX to introduce Starlink ‘Direct-to-Cell’ satellite connectivity across all 14 markets, announced in December 2025.

Overall revenue from mobile services increased by 27.6% in reported currency and by 22.6% in constant currency, with growth evident across all regions and services.

Voice revenue grew by 12.8% in constant currency, supported primarily by growth in the customer base of 10.5% as we continue to invest in our network and distribution infrastructure. Voice ARPU grew by 2.6%. Total minutes on the network grew by 5.3% while voice usage per customer was 287 minutes.

Data revenue grew by 35.2% in constant currency, driven by both data customer base growth of 14.8% and data ARPU growth of 16.2%. The customer base growth was recorded across all regions and data traffic across our network continued to see strong growth of 48.5%. Data usage per customer increased to 8.9 GB per customer per month (from 7.0 GB in the prior period), with smartphone penetration increasing 4.7% to reach 49.5%. Smartphone data usage per customer reached 10.9 GB per month compared to 8.8 GB per month in the prior period. As of 31 March 2026, 5G is operational across six markets following the rollout in Malawi in Q4'26, with 3,116 sites deployed across our network. Data revenue contributed to 47.3% of total mobile services revenue, up from 43.0% in the prior period.

Underlying EBITDA was $2,612m, up 36.7% in reported currency and 30.8% in constant currency. The underlying EBITDA margin improved by 327 basis points year-on-year to 48.8%, following our strong revenue performance, a more stable operating environment and continued benefits from our ongoing cost efficiency programme.

Operating free cash flow was $1,802m, up by 30.8% in constant currency, due to the increased constant currency underlying EBITDA partially offset by higher capex during the period.