Airtel Africa has reported a net profit of US$193-million for the third quarter of its financial year after the company attracted more subscribers in the DRC, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia.

The company added that its customer base across its operations has increased by 10.1% to reach138.5 million, up from its figure of 134.7 million reported in October 2022.

Its profit after tax also grew 1.7% to US$523-million, while mobile services also grew across all its markets with Nigeria experiencing the highest growth of 20.9%.

In East Africa, the company said it experienced an 11.9% increase in growth and in the Francophone regions, growth increased almost as much with 11.8% recorded.

Last year, the company said its slow revenue growth was due to the impact of the registration of valid National Identity Numbers (NIN) and SIM cards with phone operators, as directed by the Nigerian government, as well as the sale of its tower infrastructure in Madagascar, Malawi and Tanzania.

Airtel Africa CEO Segun Ogunsanya said the company also experienced a 14% growth in its data customer base to reach 51.3 million users and an increase of over 22% year-on-year in its mobile money user base which now stands at 31.4 million.

Ogunsanya said there is still plenty of room for the growth of the company - especially in Nigeria where 15% of customers remain on 3G, with the remaining percentage of customers on 2G.

“We will continue expanding our network and evolving our service offerings to further deepen both financial and digital inclusion across our markets. We are especially focused on enhancing our spectrum footprint. Over the last nine months, we have spent almost US$490-million on 4G and 5G spectrum across key markets to improve network capacity and quality, future-proof the company for continued growth opportunities and facilitate economic progress in all our markets.”