Airtel Money sees sales jump by a quarter after gaining millions more customers

African payments firm Airtel Money revealed its half-year sales have leapt by a quarter after gaining millions more customers, weeks after launching London’s biggest stock market float in five years.

The company published its first set of financial results since its initial public offering (IPO) took a roughly £5.3 billion valuation.

It reported revenues of 830 million US dollars (£621 million) for the six months to the end of September, which was 25% higher than the year before at constant currency.

This was driven by growth across its portfolio of products including wallet services, payments and transfers, and financial services.

Pre-tax profits came in at 360 million US dollars (£270 million) for the half-year period, which was a jump of 18% compared with the prior year.

Airtel Money said sales growth was helped by it gaining more customers who also spent more on each transaction on average.

The customer base reached 56.7 million at the end of September, some nine million more than the prior year, according to the firm.

Airtel finds and serves customers through a network of branches and kiosks across Africa who make payments, pay bills, withdraw cash and access other money services.

It has also seen a growing number of customers use its app, which the business said reflected increasing digital adoption.

Airtel Money was spun off from separately listed FTSE 100 firm Airtel Africa, a leading telecoms provider which is part of Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises.

Its IPO earlier this month was the biggest on the London Stock Exchange since 2021 and was thought to mark the first large African fintech to list on a global stock exchange.

Chief executive Ian Ferrao said: “Our oversubscribed London listing was a landmark achievement for Airtel Money and a vote of confidence in our business model and strategy.

“Our fastest growth is coming from payments and transfers and financial services, which are higher-quality revenue streams.

“And with around 75 million Airtel telco subscribers not yet using Airtel Money, our runway for growth remains significant.”