India, May 8 -- Airtel Africa reported solid growth across its operations for the year ended 31 March 2026, supported by higher customer additions, stronger data demand and continued expansion of its digital financial services business.

The telecommunications group said its customer base increased by 10.5% to 183.5 million during the year, the highest net additions recorded by the company to date.

Data customers rose by 14.8% to 84.2 million, while smartphone penetration increased by 4.7 percentage points to 49.5%.

Average monthly data usage per customer increased to 8.9 GB, up from 7.0 GB a year earlier, helping drive 16.2% constant-currency growth in data average revenue per user (ARPU).

Airtel Money also continued to expand. Its cu...