We lost $151m to Nigeria’s FX harmonisation – Airtel Africa

Telecom giant, Airtel Africa Plc, says it lost $151 million due to the harmonisation of the foreign exchange rates by the Nigerian government.

The Telecom company made the disclosure in its second quarter report filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Thursday.

According to the company, “Profit after tax was negative ($151m) driven largely by a foreign exchange loss of $471m recorded in finance cost before tax and $317m after tax because of the devaluation of the Nigerian currency in the month of June 2023”.

“This impact has been classified as a non-operating exceptional item.”

Recall that in June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced the unification of all segments of the Nigerian forex market.

Airtel grew its total customer base by 8.8 per cent to 143.1mn, as the penetration of mobile data and mobile money services continued to rise, driving a 22.0 per cent increase in data customers to 56.8 million and a 24.3 per cent increase in mobile money customers to 34.3 million.