Airtel’s share price posted gains of 20.20% last week, becoming one of the top gainers of the trading week as investors react bullishly to a corporate announcement that revealed that the firm’s subsidiary, SmartCash Payment Service Bank Limited (‘SmartCash PSB’), has commenced operations in Nigeria.
In the last four weeks, we have seen AIRTELAFRI gain 34% to currently stand at N1,767 per share. Its market capitalization currently stands at N6.64 trillion, also gaining over 20%, making the firm the most capitalized company listed on the Nigerian exchange.
Airtel is one of the top performers in what turned out to be a very bullish and record-breaking week for the Nigerian Exchange, as its All-Share Index gained 2.09% to currently stand at 54,085.30 basis points, the highest point for the year. For the first time since July 2008, the NGX crossed the 54,000 BP threshold on the back of strong earnings reports and increased local participation.
During the trading week, 23 equities appreciated in price during the week, lower than the 37 equities in the previous week. 54 equities depreciated in price, higher than 42 equities in the previous week, while 79 equities remained unchanged higher than 77 equities recorded in the previous week.
What you should know
- Airtel Africa Plc is a public limited company, incorporated on July 12, 2018, as a private company limited by shares in the United Kingdom and re-registered as a public limited company on June 13, 2019, with its registered office situated in England and Wales.
- The firm is a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services with presence in 14 African countries, primarily in East, Central, and West Africa. The company offers an integrated suite of telecommunications solutions to its subscribers, including mobile voice and data services as well as mobile money services both nationally and internationally.
- The reason we are seeing such a strong appreciation in price and a strong addition in its market capitalization is as a result of the firm the firm’s announcement, stating that it commenced its Mobile Money operation in Nigeria.
- Recall that in April, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted final approval for Airtel subsidiary, SMARTCASH Payment Service Bank limited (‘Smartcash’) to operate a Payment Service Bank (‘PSB’) in Nigeria.
- This was on the back of the CBN granting Airtel’s subsidiary Airtel Mobile Commerce Nigeria Ltd a full “super-agent” license, which allows it to serve customers of Nigerian banks, payment service banks, and licensed mobile money carriers.
- This is big for the telecommunication giant as the PSB license would allow the firm to operate in the financial services sector of the country, including receiving cash deposits, processing payments and remittances, issuing debit and prepaid cards, and operating electronic wallets, and other services.
- The announcement further read, “Services will initially be available at selected retail touchpoints, and operations will be expanded gradually across the country over the next few months.”
- Also weighing in on the bullish sentiment is the company’s stellar full year performance that showed promise for the company’s future.
- The company was able to grow its revenue by 20.60% from $3,888 million to $4,714 million Year-on-Year. This was only made possible because of the jump in revenue by 34.69% YoY.
- The company’s Profit After Tax (PAT) stood at $755 million, an 82% jump when compared to the previous year.
- During the trading week, we saw a spike in the volume of AIRTEL shares, with more shares changing hands than average. The highest volume during the trading week was posted on Friday, as it recorded a volume of 1,392,412.
- On Friday, its share price traded at a 52-week high of N1,767 as it gained 9.89% on the trading day in question. In fact, its share price gained over 9% for only two trading sessions during the week.
- Airtel began the year with a share price of N955 and has since gained approximately 85% on that price valuation, ranking the 12th on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance.
AIRTELAFRI is the 99th most traded stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the past three months. It has traded a total volume of 6.73 million shares, in 1,577 deals, valued at N9.56 billion over the period, with an average of 106,772 traded shares per session.
