Positive sentiment witnessed on shares of Airtel Africa Plc since the beginning of the year has resulted in investors of the company gaining about N3.571 trillion at the close of trading on 18th July.
Airtel Africa began the year with a share price of 955.00 NGN and has since gained 99.5% on that price valuation, ranking ninth on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance.
The market sentiment for the segment which comprises two telecom firms – MTN Nigeria Plc and Airtel Africa Plc has remained resilient in the face of the pandemic.
Checks by Nairametrics showed Airtel closed its last trading day (Monday, July 18, 2022) at N1,905 per share and N7.160 trillion in market capitalisation on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) as against N955 per share and N3.589 trillion in market capitalisation at the beginning of trading in January 2022, hence has earned a gain of N3.571 trillion or 99.5% year to date.
Telecom companies are currently taking advantage of remote working which most companies have adopted following the COVID-19 pandemic to rake in gains from data subscriptions and voice calls.
Many workers are leveraging the Internet for online education, teleworking, gaming and entertainment and there has been a rise in Internet traffic recorded by the Internet exchange point.
Internet traffic had increased as many companies introduced work-from-home policies a week before the government-imposed lockdown.
What the analysts are saying
- Financial analysts at CardinalStone Partners Limited have said that unstoppable trends of remote work powered by the telecoms have continued to reshape the world around us.
- The analysts in their 2022 Mid-Year Outlook themed: ‘Same Challenges, New Shocks’ said: “We see a compelling case for portfolio exposure to the data-inspired telecoms stocks, that has posted an average earnings growth of 42.8% YoY over the last eight quarters.
- Over this period, internet and mobile services continue to inspire change in communication patterns among citizens and businesses. It has also led to innovations in payment systems, pioneered by existing and new FinTechs and telecoms operators.
- In our view, Nigeria’s demographic characteristics (i.e high proportion of youthful population) is likely to continue to drive increase in adoption rate of data-enabled devices and digital offerings”.
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.
- Airtel 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 is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) since July 9th, 2019.
- Airtel Africa is the 96th most traded stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the past three months (Apr 12 – Jul 18, 2022). It has traded a total volume of 7.65 million shares in 2,304 deals—valued at NGN 12.4 billion over the period, with an average of 121,433 traded shares per session. A volume high of 1.39 million was achieved on May 27th, and a low of 31 on April 13th, for the same period.
