Airtel Africa grew data revenues in its Nigerian operations by 40 percent to $122 million (N44 billion) in the second quarter of 2020.
Total revenue in constant currency increased by 17.1 percent, with reported revenue growth of 8.9 percent as a result of the Nigerian naira devaluation.
Data revenue growth was supported by 18.5 percent growth in data customers and data ARPU growth of 20.7 percent.
Data customer penetration in Airtel’s customer base was 41 percent, up by 2 percentage points from previous period.
The accelerated rollout of 4G network supported customer base growth (with 70% of total sites now being 4G) and affordable data bundle offerings, according to the firm.
The total data usage on Airtel’s network almost doubled versus the previous period.
Additionally, 4G data usage contributed 58 percent to the total data usage. Data usage per customer reached 2.7GB, up by 69.2 percent and the data revenue accounted for 35.7 percent of total revenue, up 5.8 percent.
Operating free cash flow was $152m, up by 48.2 percent, largely as a result of double-digit underlying EBITDA growth and lower capital expenditure.
MoneyCentral forecast last month that a boom in data usage will lift MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa revenues to the tune of $700 million (N272 billion) in 2020.