Insecurity in some parts of Nigeria which led to the government asking all operators to shut down a number of sites negatively impacted Airtel’s voice revenue.
This was disclosed by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa Plc, Segun Ogunsanya, at the Investors’ call held on Friday, February 4th, 2022.
While addressing the drivers behind the slowdown in voice revenue growth in Nigeria in Q3 ended December 2021, Ogunsanya explained that during the period, the federal government ordered the closing of some sites in some Northern states that were being affected by insecurity.
Hence, there was a drastic reduction majorly in voice revenue. According to the CEO, the order to shut down telecommunication sites was directed at all operators in the country.
Ogunsanya stated that “Voice revenue for the last quarter ended December, was particularly affected by government’s instructions that a number of sites should be shut down in the northern part on the country”.
“There are some issues in the Northern part of the country with some terrorist activities being heightened in the last quarter, so for security reasons the government asked all operators to shut down a number of sites and that affected our outgoing voice revenue and it did impact the voice revenue that came out of Nigeria despite the fact that we managed an increase in the net addition”.
Compared to the Q3 period, voice revenue from Nigeria in the previous two quarters of the year grew by 21% and 8%, in Q1 and Q2, respectively, while voice revenue in Q3 grew slightly by 0.9%.
Other highlights of the Airtel Africa Plc Q3 financial statements;
- The group reported double-digit growth across all key services; as Voice revenue, data revenue and mobile revenue grew by 16.1%, 37.2%, and 22.0%, respectively.
- The 9-month financial statement revealed that the company’s revenue from Nigeria made up roughly 39% to the total revenue, thereby contributing the highest, compared to East Africa and Francophone Africa.
- Also, in Nigeria, revenue grew by 21.3% from $1.13 billion in the corresponding period of 2020 to $1.37 billion, as Data revenue growth continued to be a key driver of growth in Nigeria, growing by 44.5%.
- Conclusively, total customer base in the country declined by 2 million, largely due to the implementation of new “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) requirements in Nigeria, which initially included a temporary halt to new customer activations.
