Local currency growth was in the mid-30s again in Q4 and likely to accelerate driven by the 50% price increase approval, and stabilising macro. We have updated our MTN and AAF models for the Naira, diesel and mobile tariffs; our target prices go to ZAR190 and £3 from ZAR130 and £2 respectively and we maintain our Buy recommendations.
February was another good month for our top EM Telcos, now up 15% YTD on average. This note also includes key news & other thoughts in order to help investors generate alpha within the EM Telco space. With performance strong so far, we make no changes to our picks.
Bharti Airtel has announced it intends to acquire 5% of Airtel Africa (which it already owns 57% of) and intends to complete this by March 31st2025. Airtel Africa are also currently in the process of executing a $100m share buyback in 2 tranches with the first $50m to be completed by April 24th 2025. AAF’s last RNS suggested the company has so far bought back $22m of this, leaving $38m still to be executed in the first tranche
Airtel Africa shares jumped by 10% today after delivering a strong beat, with reported topline and EBITDA ahead of expectations by 5%. Reported revenue growth inflected to positive territory as East Africa improved whilst both local currency revenue and EBITDA accelerated. Separately, the group has reiterated its full year guidance for continued margin improvement and capex spending between $725m and $750m. AAF is one of our NSR GEM top picks for 2025, and we are Buyers with a GBp 200 price targ...
Nigerian Telcos continued to perform very well from a top line perspective despite the absence of price increases and the macro pressures. This suggests as we wrote HERE, that devaluations tend to spur ARPU increases in local currency, and a “catch back” of lost hard $ revenue.
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