Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Airtel Africa full-year results for the year ended March 2024. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions later during the conference. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Segun Ogunsanya. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. I have with me Jaideep, our Group CFO, Alastair, Head of Investor Relations, and Sunil Taldar, incoming Group CEO, is joining us on this call. Let me give you some very brief highlights over the last year. I'll provide an update on the strategy before I hand over to Jaideep, who is going to run through the financial results in detail. Over the last year, the macroeconomic and operating environment has been particularly challenging in many of our markets. However, the focus on our strategy has ensured strong underlying operating momentum, which has driven a very resilient performance across all of our regions. This has supported strong constant currency revenue growth, which has easily made the continuing inflationary and FX pressures we have felt across our cost base, ensuring a resilient EBITDA margin.
In addition, we have seen continued success in the de-risking of our balance sheet. Our purpose, as we say every time, is to transform lives across Africa. This trend of the business supports employment. It contributes to economic progress while supporting the local communities. Continuing infrastructure investment remains key to the development of the nation's economies, and we continue to bring communities closer and give them the opportunity to access affordable financial services, sometimes for the very first time. Value creation for all stakeholders has been evidenced by our many successes. We have navigated a very challenging operating environment and delivered a strong customer base growth of 9%. Usage has increased across voice, data, mobile money, leading to an increase of almost 11% in ARPU, reflecting the underlying demand and affordability of our key services.
This sustained demand for our services has resulted in a 20.9% increase in constant currency revenues in the year. This has enabled us to limit the impact of inflation on our EBITDA margins. Importantly, we are now in a net cash position at the OpCo, reflecting the excellent work we have put in to improve the capital structure of the group through continued upstreaming of subsidies and a reduction of foreign currency debt. This has been achieved with continued network investment to support the current growth and future-proof growth ambitions. The successes have enabled the board to reinstate an existing dividend policy with a further 9% increase in our final dividend to $0.0357, which, combined with the launch of the $100 million buyback ignite, reflect a continued commitment to shareholder returns. Slide number 5.
I think it's worth putting our performance in the context of the environment we operate in Africa, and I'm going to highlight three key challenges we faced and how we mitigated against those challenges. First, the macroeconomic challenges surrounding small spend impacted by high inflation. However, with affordable and transparent offerings, we continue to provide value for our customers and ensure a very strong customer experience. Secondly, inflationary pressure remained a challenge for the business, but with continued operational leverage and further cost optimization, EBITDA margins have remained resilient. Thirdly, currency volatility across the region is not a new challenge for us, but with a focus on de-risking the balance sheet through continued upstreaming and reducing foreign currency debt, the pressures have been reduced considerably. Let me now update you on our priorities and achievements that highlight how these strategies are working for us. Next, slide number 7.
Capture the key drivers of Airtel's future growth potential. We are providing essential services to almost 640 million people across 14 countries in Africa. The demographics of these markets, combined with a very low level of SIM penetration, will see further expansion of our customer base, which, when combined with increased usage, will support strong revenue trends. Importantly, the mobile money journey remains at a very early stage across all of our markets. This will further underpin the growth momentum. One particular area to highlight is our strong track record, very, very strong track record. For the last 25 consecutive quarters, we have reported double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth, which has shown how we, as an organization, have the right framework and mindset to continue delivering against the many opportunities across our markets. Look at the equilibrium growth algorithm.
The algorithm on this chart shows how our operational success has been achieved and also explains how we intend to sustain strong growth momentum going forward. The growth in the customer base across all segments, combined with increased ARPU, as increased usage is monetized, translates into very strong revenue growth. Operational leverage and cost optimization both drive increased resources for investment to reinforce future growth. Therefore, enabling continued customer base growth. This cycle, we continue to sustain our strong operating momentum in the future. As a group, we are very clear on how to capture this growth, and our Win-Win Strategy has been very consistent over many years. This has been a key focus for us, particularly now that the environment is very challenging. Let me now go to our familiar Win-Win Strategy. On this slide on your screen, it's showing the six key pillars.
These are designed to capture the growth opportunity as we transform lives in Africa. Clearly, the strategy is working. Over the next couple of slides, I'm going to show how each of these pillars have impacted our business and driven the successes that we have shown over the last financial year. Let me focus on technology and distribution pillars. We have continued to add new network sites, another 3,000 in the year, with over 900 of these in rural areas, and we have maintained our focus on modernizing and increasing capacity, with 95% of all of our sites now on 5G. This is driving overall data capacity on the network, almost 30% higher than what it was. 5G has been launched in five of our markets. We've launched 5G in Nigeria, in Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, and in Uganda, with over 1,000 sites now clearly operational.
In addition, we have also added 5,000 kilometers of fiber to reach a total of over 75,000 kilometers, one of the largest in Africa. The second key pillar for us is distribution, and the data on your slide reflects how our distribution network has expanded significantly over the year, both in terms of our exclusive and non-exclusive channels. Our primary objective is to increase the scale of our distribution, reduce friction, and get closer to the many customers we serve as we increase usage and our revenues. We have almost 1.9 million touchpoints for our customers, and we have seen a 20% growth in customer activity outlets, and this has contributed to the 9% growth in our customer base to over 152 million, almost one53 million.
Our focus on digitization is important to improve the customer experience and reach, and we have put much greater focus on driving digital recharges and onboarding. The next slide, slide 11, reflects our service across the data and mobile money pillars. Our tech strategy continues to support our win-win strategy, winning with data. With 95% of our sites now on 4G, growth momentum on 4G continues, with a 42% growth in 4G customers over the year. This, combined with transparent and affordable data bundle of ours, has been the primary driver of a 45% increase in data traffic across our network. Talking about mobile money, the win-win mobile money has focused on the accessibility of financial services to our customer base. Our exclusive distribution network has increased 37% to close to 110,000, with a 53% increase in our multi-prime regions.
We also continue to focus on enhancing the use cases across the ecosystem. This has resulted in 38% growth in transaction value to over $112 billion and a 13% increase in transaction value per customer. The lack of traditional banking infrastructure in our market means that the number of customers who are able to access traditional banking services is lower than even before. Our focus remains on building the distribution network, increasing the use cases, and ensuring the reliability of this platform. The last two sets of pillars, winning with cost and winning with people, it is very difficult to imagine a year where cost is known to be more important for our business. The macroeconomic developments and the continued inflationary pressures on our cost base, particularly energy cost, have been a real challenge over the year.
Despite this, resilient EBITDA margin is a testament to the hard work being done to mitigate against these challenges. Over the last four years, we have seen a 450 basis points increase in EBITDA margins and continued increases in return on capital. This is a reflection of the success of our strategy. Talking about people, our Win-Win people strategy summarizes our values, and this continues to be critical to our ability to deliver on our business strategy, and particularly plays, on improvements in gender diversity as we continuously strive to make further progress on this agenda. In the next two slides, I'm going to provide examples of how a combination of these pillars plays out in the real world. My first example is in Zambia, one of our countries in East Africa. Every one of our customers in Zambia receives 4G coverage.
By offering affordable and reliable 4G services, customer data usage has increased almost 50% in the year. At the same time, our increased focus on distribution supported increased mobile money adoption with an annual transaction value of $27 billion. This is almost equal to Zambia's GDP. The result of these initiatives saw a 12% growth in the customer base, cementing our very strong market position in Zambia. Over the last five years in Zambia, our revenue growth has averaged at 5% each year, highlighting the continued success and relevance of our strategy. The Zambia case study reflects not only one but four pillars of our Win-Win Strategy: the mobile money pillar, data pillar, distribution, and technology. Let me give another example in DRC. DRC is an under-penetrated market with a very young and often unbanked population.
In order to grow financial inclusion, we invested significantly in our Mobile Money agents across the market, with a more than twofold increase in Mobile Money agents to 156,000. This transformed the way customers use our services and led to a 30% increase in the number of Mobile Money customers to over 3.6 million. Mobile Money revenues in DRC increased at 1%, reflecting a very strong performance. But the focus on distribution also supported our Win-Win data pillar. Through increased engagement with our customer base, we were able to enhance our customer base through promoting other services, including mobile data, which contributed to a net addition of over 1 million in the DRC. Let me now talk more about Mobile Money as we use this pillar to drive financial inclusion across our portfolio.
In addition to telecoms growth opportunity, we have a very unique position to layer on additional growth in the form of mobile money. Let me spend a few minutes only through this opportunity and our approach to capturing the opportunity. Mobile money services are solid by increased financial inclusion across our markets. The very low levels of financial inclusion have been one key reason for the 22% average annual growth in the customer base over the last five years. It has also been reinforced by the cost fee that has been built up through the provision of easy-to-use services with a focus on availability of float, so customers can access their cash with relative ease whenever and wherever they want it. The chart for slide 14 shows how mobile money is solving the problem of low financial inclusion across our markets.
We believe there are four differentiating factors, four critical factors that are necessary for the success of mobile money. One, branding. For customers to use Airtel Money, they need to know that their deposits are safe with us. We have been building the brand trust over more than a decade, with other financial institutions struggling to replicate. The second key differentiator is distribution. Our years of investing behind our GSM distribution infrastructure, they've come to support distribution of our mobile money services. The third one is our expertise in KYC. Most regulators, they are very conscious of the importance of knowing your customers. We develop very good technologies in deploying KYC initiatives. The final one is on targeting microtransactions in an affordable manner that will support increased additional value. Remember, our model is quite different. Our model is low value but high volume.
If you compare this with the typical banking model of very high value but low volume, you can understand why we're very successful in reaching many people in Africa. Slide 17th, the next slide, reflects our mobile money strategy, which continues to enhance the very strong performance across the business. Building on what I've discussed earlier, our first priority is access to the customer base. We do this by building a very wide distribution infrastructure, rural and urban. And this distribution focus, combined with a very strong brand value, has ensured that our acquisition strategy is capturing quality customers. A very fundamental feature of success is to build relevant products across the ecosystem. We continue to roll out targeted services across the merchant network and drive the enterprise segment by offering reliable and accessible services.
We continue to innovate to drive increased use cases and ensure we provide the best customer service and drive digital adoption to ensure ease of access for our customer base. The next slide, again, shows the continued evolution of our mobile money ecosystem. Like I mentioned earlier, the annualized value is $123 billion in constant currency. We still see the digital wallet, cash, and cash-out services as the major source of mobile money revenue. There's very good potential for this from increasing our penetration with new customers. But there's also a continued diversification of the business towards additional payment solutions and also more sophisticated financial services. Now, let me hand over to Jaideep to run through the financial preview section. Jaideep, please.
Thank you, Segun, and good morning and good afternoon to all of you. Let me start with the key financial highlights.
Our reported performance was negatively impacted by severe currency devaluation across key markets, most significantly in Nigeria, which happens to be our largest market, and as well as macroeconomic challenges. However, we continue to deliver good underlying results despite these headwinds. We expanded our customer base by 9% year-on-year to 153 million. This helped us to sustain our constant currency revenue and EBITDA growth momentum. Revenue growth for the full year was 20.9% in constant currency, with double-digit growth in all three key segments, namely voice, data, and mobile money. EBITDA grew by 21.3% in constant currency to reach $2.4 billion in reported currency. EBITDA margin resilient at 48.8% despite high inflation and rising energy costs across several markets. Operating free cash flow at $1.7 billion declined 7.4% on reported currency basis.
CapEx for the full year was $737 million, broadly flat from the previous year but below our guidance due to deferral in data center investment in Nigeria and Kenya. Leverage at 1.4 times was stable. The board has recommended a final dividend of $0.0357 per share, thereby making a total dividend of $0.0595 for the full year FY24, up 9% vis-à-vis last year in line with our current dividend policy. Next slide. I think it is worth mentioning the two significant currency devaluations that we witnessed in the current year and their impact on our results. The first major devaluation was in Nigeria, where Naira devalued from 461 per US dollar in March 2023 to 1,303 per US dollar in March 2024.
This was the result of abolishment of segmentation and introduction of the willing buyer, willing seller model by the central bank in June 2023, and amendment of computation for the NAFEX rate by FMDQ Securities Exchange in January 2024. As a result, Naira devalued to $752 in June 2023, continued to devalue to reach $952 by December 2023, and following FMDQ Securities Exchange computation amendment in January, reached $1,303 on March 31st, 2024. In current year, this devaluation negatively impacted reported currency revenue by over $1 billion and EBITDA by roughly $550 million. EBITDA margin was also impacted by 70 basis points as a result of lower contribution from Nigeria to the group margin.
The revaluation of US dollar liabilities and derivatives resulted in another $1.1 billion of derivative and foreign exchange loss, out of which $770 million has been classified as an exception in line with our policy on exceptional items. This devaluation additionally impacted another item, comprehensive income, by $0.9 billion, out of which $0.75 billion impact was on account of goodwill. Secondly, in Malawi, the Reserve Bank adjusted the selling rate of Malawian kwacha from 1,180 to 1,700 in November 2023, which resulted in derivative and foreign exchange loss of $37 million, which has been treated as an exceptional item in line with our current policy. Next slide. On the mobile service performance, our mobile customer base grew by 9%, supported by growth across all regions. Nigeria grew by 5.3%, East Africa by 10.7%, and Francophone Africa by 11.8%.
In Nigeria, the customer base growth was negatively impacted by barring of customers pursuant to KYC directives by the regulator. Mobile service RPU was $2.5 per customer per month, growing by 9.3% compared to the prior period, primarily attributable to data RPU growth. Reported currency decline in RPU was primarily on account of Naira devaluation. Revenue for the year was $4.3 billion, which grew 19.4% in constant currency. EBITDA was $2.1 billion, grew by 18.8% in constant currency, with an EBITDA margin of 48.8%, declined by 73 basis points from the last year. Coming to the performance of mobile money, our mobile money customer base grew by 21%. Transaction value per customer increased by over 30%, resulting in a 38.2% increase in the transaction value to over $112 billion for the full year.
EBITDA was $436 million, growing by 39% in constant currency, with an EBITDA margin of 52.1%, EBITDA margin improvement of 236 basis points as compared to last year. On the next slide, the overall revenue growth was 20.9% in constant currency, while in reported currency, revenue declined by 5.3%. The impact of Nigerian Naira devaluation, however, is not fully embedded in full-year revenue since the devaluation occurred at various stages during the year. As a result, the next year reported currency revenue will continue to reflect the impact of currency headwinds experienced in FY24. If the closing rate of 1,303 Nigerian Naira per USD were to be used to consolidate the results of the group for the year-end at 31st March 2024, reported revenue would have further declined by $603 million to $4.4 billion, which is a 16.7% year-on-year decline as opposed to a 5.3% decline reported.
In constant currency, all key service segments grew double-digit, with voice revenue up by 12%, data revenue up by 29%, and mobile money revenue up by 33%. On the next slide, we show the group EBITDA, which has declined by 5.7% in reported currency to $2.4 billion. Constant currency EBITDA grew by 21.3%. EBITDA has been adversely impacted by $588 million as a result of currency devaluation, primarily in Nigeria. Similar to revenue, the impact of Nigerian Naira devaluation is not fully embedded in the full-year EBITDA since devaluation occurred at various stages during the year. As a result, the next year reported currency EBITDA will continue to reflect the impact of currency headwinds experienced in FY 2024.
If we apply the closing rate of 1,303 Nigerian Naira per USD to consolidate our results of the group for the year-end at 31st March 2024, reported EBITDA would have been further declined by $324 million to $2.1 billion, which is an 18.3% year-on-year decline as opposed to the 5.7% decline reported, with an EBITDA margin of 48.1%, while the Q4 EBITDA margin dropped at 46.4%. OPEX increase of $451 million during the year is primarily contributed by a volume-driven increase of $286 million relating to additional sites, mobile money commission on the incremental revenue, and other revenue-linked expenses, and balance of $154 million is on account of rate increase, mainly on fuel prices across, of course. Despite the above headwinds, the EBITDA margin for the full year was resilient at 48.8%. Going to three segments.
First, on Nigeria, revenue grew by 26% in constant currency, supported by both customer base growth of 5.3% and ARPU growth of 19.1%. Customer growth during the year was negatively impacted by barring of customers pursuant to KYC directives by the regulator. Voice revenue grew by 20%, primarily driven by the voice ARPU growth of 13.2%. Data revenue grew by over 32%, contributed by 15% customer base growth and 14% growth in data ARPU. Data ARPU growth was supported by increased smartphone penetration and usage. EBITDA margin at 53.5% increased 202 basis points, benefiting from the continued operational efficiencies and strong constant currency revenue growth. Diesel prices have increased sharply in Q4, and if this continues, we can expect some headwinds even in the next year. In East Africa, revenue in constant currency grew by 25%, driven by double-digit growth in all three services of voice, data, and mobile money.
Voice revenue grew by 15%, primarily driven by voice RPU growth of 3.6%, customer base growth of 11%. Voice RPU growth was supported by increased usage per customer, partially offsetting the interconnection rate reduction in Tanzania and Rwanda. Data revenue grew by 31%, largely driven by data customer base growth of 21.5% and data RPU growth of 4.2%. Data RPU growth was supported by the expansion of the 4G infrastructure and 5G rollout in four markets in East Africa. Mobile money revenue grew 36%, driven by 16% growth in customer base and 17% growth in mobile money RPU. EBITDA margin at 53.3% declined 31 basis points, primarily impacted by rising fuel prices in several of our key markets, coupled with inflationary pressure partially offset by improved margins in the mobile money segment.
In Francophone, revenue grew by 10% in constant currency and was largely supported by customer base growth of 11.8%. Voice revenue in the current year was impacted by the interconnect rate reduction in some of the markets. Thereby, it was almost flat on a year-on-year basis. Data revenue grew by almost 23%, contributed by 16% data customer base growth and 3% growth in data RPU. Data RPU growth was supported by an increase in smartphone penetration by 4.3% to reach 38.4%. Data usage per customer at 4.4 GB grew by 25%. EBITDA margin at 46% was marginally lowered by about 97 basis points, partly due to one-time OPEX benefits in the prior period. The next slide shows the key component that led to an increase in finance cost.
As you can see, the finance cost, excluding exceptional items and foreign and derivative losses, was higher by $59 million, largely as a result of increased local currency debt in operating entities, in line with our push-down debt strategy, as well as an increase in the base interest rate on the local currency loan. Exceptional item loss of $807 million was related to devaluation in Nigerian Naira in June 2023 and Q4 March 2024, reflecting the impact from the revaluation of USD liabilities and derivatives in Nigeria operations. Coming to the EPS, despite our good underlying performance with double-digit growth in revenue and operating profit in constant currency terms, EPS has been negatively impacted due to foreign and derivative losses, primarily in Nigeria.
Over and above the foreign and derivative losses related to the devaluation of USD liabilities and derivatives, currency devaluation also has an impact of translation on reported revenue and EBITDA. Therefore, the EPS before exceptional items and derivatives and foreign exchange losses reflects a decline of 11%. Our capital allocation policy remains the same. Our key priorities remain to continuously invest in the business, along with further strengthening our balance sheet. Our CAPEX guidance for the next year is between $725 million-$750 million, including about $40 million allocated for the Greenfield data center in Nigeria and Kenya. Returning cash to shareholders through our progressive dividend policy remains one of the priorities, and the board has recommended a final dividend of $0.0357 per share, making a total of $0.59 per share, reflecting growth of 9% in line with our current dividend policy.
We continue to invest in future growth. We have invested $737 million in tangible CAPEX during the year. Over 87% of our CAPEX investment is geared towards growth initiatives, mainly to increase data capacity, coverage expansion, and strengthening the IT infrastructure. We have also rolled out approximately 5,000 kilometers of fiber network in the last one year, resulting in 75,400+ kilometers of total fiber network. Coming to the normalized free cash flow, despite significant currency and macroeconomic headwinds, we are able to generate a positive cash flow of $234 million. This slide gives a bridge between EBITDA and normalized free cash flow. The difference between the two is the cash payments made in the current year, which primarily include about $1.1 billion in various payments made in terms of cash paid, cash tax paid, repayment of lease liability, and cash interest.
We have spent cash CapEx of $877 million, license renewal, and spectrum acquisition of $152 million, which includes $127 million for renewal of a 2,100-megahertz license in Nigeria. Hence, we have left with $234 million of normalized free cash flow at the end of March 2024. We continue to focus on strengthening our balance sheet by firstly reducing our foreign currency debt across OpCos. OpCo debt is due for repayment in May 2024, and we have more than enough cash at OpCo to repay the debt fully without taking any further debt at the OpCo level. Secondly, OpCo local currency market debt increased by $490 million as we continue to push down the debt to OpCo as part of our strategy. Over 83% of the OpCo debt is now in local currency. Group leverage at 1.4 times has remained stable compared to last year.
However, the EBITDA used to compute the leverage does not fully incorporate the devaluation of Nigerian naira, as I mentioned earlier. Hence, the leverage is expected to increase a bit in the short term. The total weighted average interest rate was 10.1% vis-à-vis 7.7% in the prior period due to an increase in the base interest rate and higher interest rates on local currency OpCo debt. On the next slide, I think it is worth putting context on how the significant currency devaluation in the current year impacts our near-term outlook and the steps that we have planned to mitigate the same. As mentioned previously, due to staggered devaluation of the naira during the year, the full impact of the entire devaluation has not been reflected in the FY 2024 results.
As we mentioned, if we used the closing exchange rate of 1,303 NGN per $1, the reported revenue would have declined by 16.7% as against a 5.3% decline in the current financial. Similarly, EBITDA would have declined by 18.3% to $2.1 billion as against a 5.7% decline reported. Q4 EBITDA margin, 46.5%, largely reflects the latest impact of foreign forex and inflationary headwinds, and also partly contributed by the mixed change because the contribution of Nigeria operations as compared to the previous year has come down significantly due to the devaluation. Our mitigation, we are focused on distribution expansion, investment in network infrastructure to drive revenue growth and improve our customer experience. We plan to further reduce our US dollar exposure and judiciously deploy CAPEX to secure the highest return on investment.
And we also renegotiate with the tower companies to deploy renewable energy solutions to reduce our reliance on diesel costs and, therefore, the headwinds which we face on the diesel price. I'll now hand over to Segun to conclude the presentation.
Thank you, Jaideep. Finally, a few words from me in terms of the outlook. As you have seen from our results, our focus has consistently driven positive momentum across the business. Very key to delivering value to our stakeholders is to continue to drive growth across our base. Our focus will remain on investing in our network and on further expanding our distribution network to be closer to our customers. And at the same time, we look at new opportunities for growth, particularly in data centers and fiber. Clearly, our results have been impacted by two major headwinds.
One, significant foreign currency devaluation in Nigeria and an increase in energy costs across a number of countries in our portfolio. But the growth opportunity that exists across our network remains compelling. Growth potential in our 14 markets remains very compelling. And we are very well positioned to deliver against this opportunity. We will continue to focus on margin improvements from the recent level of around 46.5% as reported in our Q4 results. And with that, I would like to thank all of you for your attention today. I now open the floor for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your touch-tone phone or on the keypad on your screen. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue.
If you wish to withdraw your question, you may press star and then two to remove yourself from the question queue. For those logged onto the webcast, you may submit your question using the text box at the bottom of your screen. The first question we have is from Rohit Modi of Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on your CAPEX guidance, given there is a deferral of CAPEX plan from last year to next year, your CAPEX envelope looks like declining a lot from your guidance last year. What exactly is driving this? Is this specifically driving from one country or one area? Is this driving from Nigeria or any other areas that you would like to highlight?
Secondly, on your margin guidance, the margin impact from diesel costs in 4Q in Nigeria, given the Nigerian margins were flat, what was the diesel impact? If there was no diesel impact, what kind of diesel price impact do you expect next year in Nigeria in terms of how much decline do you expect in Nigeria in terms of margins? Thirdly, if you can please guide around what would be your run rate for cash lease repayments next year, given you have an IHS contract recently done, what kind of impact do you see overall? Does your lease cost grow substantially next year or remain slightly up from this year? Thank you.
Thank you. Let me start with the CAPEX guidance. Last year, CAPEX, I mean, added some balances for data center investment. This year, we provided for around $40 million in the 2027, 2027, 2030, 2040 guidance we've given.
So more or less, the figure is actually the same for CAPEX as usual if you exclude the special money we set aside for the data center. We've so far continued despite significant devaluation in Nigeria, the largest country. But we still are with a laser focus on continuing investment in every one of our markets. Our pathway for investment has not changed. We're going to continue to invest in Nigeria despite the devaluation, despite the energy crisis we face because we believe in the long-term potential of this large market. Over 200 million people, many young people, they consume data, they seek data on the go, and they use data on their mobile devices. That shows the depth of the opportunity available for us. So we would continue to invest behind growth in Nigeria and in each of our 14 markets. You spoke around margin.
I'm going to ask Jaideep to speak about the margin. Jaideep, can you take the margin question?
Yeah. Your second question on the margin impact, that's basically the diesel impact in Nigeria, whether it will have further impact. Yes, it will have further impact. If you see the way the diesel price has moved, especially on the quarter four, the full impact of that, unless the diesel price improves in quarter one, there is an additional impact which is expected in the range of between $25 million and $30 million, approximately, additional impact which will flow through in quarter one. However, as we mentioned, we are taking certain mitigation actions to see how we will neutralize that impact in quarter one or, if not quarter one, by at least quarter two. But yes, there is an additional impact.
At the current level of diesel price, there is an additional impact of around $30 million which will flow through in quarter one. Just to add a few comments to what Jaideep has said. Our full-year margin in Nigeria is 54%. That's for the full year. But for Q4 specifically, the margin dropped to 52.2% versus 55.3% in Q3. This is a reflection of the increase in energy costs. And as what Jaideep is talking about, the full impact is still to be reflected. So Q4 is the first full quarter where the full impact of the diesel price increase is showing. And to give a proper flavor to the increase we're talking about, the average price for diesel was around NGN 850 at the beginning of the year. It's gone to NGN one,500 from NGN 850 to NGN one,500. That's what we did in the yield increase. Okay.
On your third question on IHS, firstly, the renewal impact of the five-year renewal which we have done has been fully factored in in the lease liability. So on that contract, there is no additional impact on the lease liability. But as you know that because we follow IFRS 16 accounting, so all the new sites as and when it gets added, that increases the lease liability. But at the same time, we also pay off the lease liability which is due during the year. So that payment goes. So that's the way this works out. Next year, we don't have renewal of the old sites. But following year, we will have a renewal coming up for the sites which we sold off during 2014, 2015, 2016. So that is the time which is FY26.
Maybe we'll see a bump up in the liability because, again, the renewal will come because those sites are now getting at the closure of the first 10-year period. Thank you, Jaideep. Just clarifying on this $324 million repayment that you have this year, do you expect this goes up substantially next year or somewhere around this is what you have this year? No, no. That is not going to go up significantly. No. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. The next question we have is from Madvinder Singh of HSBC. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of comments on the results which I think are quite interesting. I really liked your reduction in hard currency exposure on the debt side. So that's a huge progress. So congrats on that.
Also, I really appreciate your guidance on the FX sensitivity where you talk about US dollar appreciation and the sensitivity to the earnings rather than Naira depreciation because it gets quite confusing when people use depreciation. Thanks for both of those things. Then a couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on the performance in Francophone Africa market, just wondering what was the reason behind the softer performance there. You talked about MTR cuts. I think there were some issues in Gabon as well. If you could quantify these separately and also whether you think these impacts are temporary in nature or do you think the impacts will be lingering on for the next year? The second question is on Nigeria. Any comments you can make on the pricing environment or actions you have taken during the quarter?
Have you had any updates from the regulators on a potential price hike? And your approach around pricing, has that changed at all? And then finally, just a clarification on CAPEX, the guidance, whether that includes leases as well or it is purely PP&E related. Thank you.
Okay. Let me start with you, Franco. There'll be a question on slowdown in growth. Yes, we've seen some slowdown in Francophone. This is driven mainly by intense competitive pressure in two of our key markets. This is driving the industry table down. I believe this is temporary. I think there is a race to the bottom that is not sustainable. This will be reversed when all of us decide to now compete on further levels rather than price. But that's what it is in two of our key markets, intense competition that is driving the price down.
We've put in a number of measures in place to mitigate, I mean, this outcome of the competition. And I'm very confident that, I mean, the impact will be fully mitigated. In, also, one of the key markets, we had an introduction of 5% excise tax. We've absorbed this tax. That also slowed down our growth in Francophone. Your question on Nigeria, as you're very familiar with our algorithm for growth, we don't depend on pricing for driving revenue. We basically use consumption. We like our customer to consume a lot more minutes, to consume a lot more data, and to use us for mobile money transactions. That's our own way of growing. We don't use price. Of course, when there's opportunity for pricing, we do significantly use price to drive our growth.
But our key focus is on driving usage by providing affordable data products, affordable price, and making our mobile money opportunity accessible to all. But despite that, we've been in discussion with the regulator in Nigeria for opportunities for telco prices to reflect inflation in the country. We've seen massive devaluation of the currency. We've seen inflation getting close to 30%. We've seen diesel price go up from NGN 850-NGN 500, like I said. And the regulator is also very understanding. We continue to work with them to make sure we have the right pricing for our products. And I'm certain that we will continue to reach good conclusion on how to maintain the health of the industry. And at the same time, it is a burden on the customers in the country. So just two points.
One, you asked that what is the impact in Francophone country because of the IUC rate reduction. The answer is roughly about $2.5 million per quarter. That's the impact of IUC rate reduction in Francophone countries. And your last question, what I understood was that whether CAPEX included lease. No, the CAPEX does not include lease. This is only tangible CAPEX. Lease is part of the IFRS liability. So it's not treated as a CAPEX. Great. Thank you very much, Jaideep and Segun. Thank you.
The next question we have is from Maurice Patrick of Barclays. Please go ahead. Maurice, your line is live. Okay. It seems there's no response from that line. The next question we have is from John Karidis of Numis. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Firstly, Segun, huge congratulations for everything you've achieved at Airtel Africa and the very best of luck to you for the future. I wanted to ask questions around mobile money, please. So are you still on to list mobile money sometime next year now? Secondly, I'm trying to sort of try to understand, let's say, the top five mobile money businesses you have within your 14-country footprint. In terms of trying to figure out which ones they are, presumably, do we simply look at the population of each country? And that would be a good indicator of what your top five markets are, excluding Nigeria, of course. And then specifically, in each of those countries, I'd love to understand how your business stands relative to your primary competitor. Is it reasonable to say that your competitive standing in mobile money is likely to reflect your competitive standing in mobile services? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, John, for the best wishes. I really appreciate it. Let me take your first question on the mobile money IPO. If you recollect, we've given guidance. Excuse me. That we're going to do an IPO of the mobile money business within 4 years of the initial minority deal. 4 years, one year to go. That's going to be sometime next year, middle of next year. We stand by their guidance. We've not changed our guidance. That is short answer to that. The guidance is that we still plan to IPO the mobile money within 4 years. 4 years, we'll end sometime next year. Your second question on the top 5 mobile money markets we have in our portfolio. There are many in East Africa. We have Zambia. We have Uganda. We have Tanzania. We have Malawi. And what are the top 4?
Maybe Gabon, Nigeria. Gabon is also the DRC. So we have two countries, French-speaking countries, Gabon and DRC, and the four other in East Africa. In Zambia, we're the market leader in GSM. We're also the market leader in the mobile money business. In Uganda, we've got only two operators. We are more or less at par. I don't see any huge differentiator between the two operators ourselves and our next competitor. In Tanzania, we have three operators. Three operators are equally geographically. We all play in the mobile money space. In Malawi, we are, of course, a clear market leader. We are also a clear market leader in the mobile money space. In some markets, as a correlation between your GSM size and the mobile money price, you are winning.
But it also shows that, I mean, it's not in all cases that there's very strong correlation. In Zambia, we started from behind, and we're not number one. So it depends on what you do. Remember, I listed, I mean, a few things that are essential to the success of mobile money. One is on the distribution infrastructure. We've been investing behind this way before some of our competitors started investing behind the mobile money space. So distribution is quite key. We're actually planting ATMs. ATMs are those agents who on their mobile phone, they save cash for loads of loads of cash. That's mobile ATM. That's what we've done way ahead of many people. We've launched about 29,000 mobile money branches exclusively working for us.
Number two, we've created a very good ecosystem whereby it's easy to move money from your bank account into your mobile wallet and readily the other way. We've also encouraged additional products that make the mobile money offering more attractive. Those are the things we've done. Yes, because you've got a very strong distribution infrastructure. It can support your mobile money business. But it depends on how well you can use that infrastructure. We've done a good job of using the infrastructure we've set up for mobile services in key markets like Malawi. But in other markets, we're not the market leader. We've actually used our own mobile money infrastructure, starting from foundation, rolling out branches, rolling out agents, creating use cases, having a good ecosystem of players to drive our mobile money offering. So to summarize, our six key markets are Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Gabon, and DRC.
We've got a split between French-speaking and East Africa where we speak English. Of course, East Africa is where the poster body for mobile money is in Kenya. So we've leveraged that affinity for mobile money in East Africa to drive our own mobile money business as well.
Thank you. The next question we have is from Tracy Kivunyu of FBNQuest. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask questions. I just want to continue with the mobile money questions and maybe go back to Francophone. So to start with the mobile money questions, first, of your 205,000 agents in Nigeria, and I have to say quite material improvements in your agency growth there. How many of those are performing OTC transactions? And.
Sorry, Tracy? Sorry? We can't hear. There's a lot of background noise.
Sorry.
Let me see whether I can make it a bit clearer. Apologies. Is this better?
Okay. Let's give it a go. Yeah. Is it better? Okay. Good. Yeah. So I was asking about your agency distribution. So of the 205,000 mobile money agents you have in Nigeria, how many of those are performing OTC transactions with the way providing the standard transactions, that is, cash out and any other payment options? And then second, could you give us more color regarding the major revenue generation sources for MoMo in Nigeria and the transaction value that you've been able to deliver so far? Third, which transactions have been impacted, or do you expect to be impacted by the cybersecurity levy that is expected to come out in a couple of weeks?
Fourth, on the AMC listing, the last communication we had in the FY23 report indicated that Nigeria, Tanzania, and Congo are not part of the OpCos under AMC. So I just wanted to confirm that when the listing is happening next year, will we see those be excluded, or is there a plan to get them included in the listing? Lastly, on mobile money, post the listing, will there be any revaluation of the EBITDA margin financially, rather, looking at how you split your infrastructure costs from GSM and mobile money? So is there any dilutive risk to the AMC EBITDA margin? My last question will be on the Francophone region. I think Segun said something about a sales tax of 5%. Please clarify if that's the case. Second, what were the fixed frequency fees that were introduced in the Francophone region? Thanks.
Tracy, there are very many questions. I just can't take you one at a time. And Jaideep, if you take the other there. About the AMC, we've said we're going to list next year. We're going to list when we have, I mean, all the countries in the envelope. We're still like a year away from that time. So I can't make any more comment on that listing beyond what you've said, that we're going to list the business next year. We continue to bring additional countries into the envelope. When we list, the ones who are available will be part of the listing. But unfortunately, I can't say anything more than that on the planned listing. On Francophone, I did mention we've got a 5% excess tax in one of the countries. We've taken that 5% instead of passing it on to the customers.
So that is what it did. We last slowed down our growth in Francophone countries. You mentioned the cybersecurity levy. It was announced a couple of days. We're not very clear about how it's going to operate. Basically, after the 20 transactions, I presume if you move money from your wallet to another wallet, it might be impacted. But I must confess, I don't have the full details. Once again, my team in Nigeria is analyzing the full impact of this on our business. And as soon as we have all the information, we would clearly come back to you on that. You also wanted to know the number of active agents we have out of the 200,000 agents in Nigeria. All of them are active. That's why we call them agents. If they're not active, we don't report them.
So the 2 or 5,000 agents, they are the active agents who do cash in and then cash out. I don't know if I've missed any other thing. You mentioned the use case. The major use case for now is the recharges. And that is the first product you adopt when you enter the mobile money space. You don't cash in, cash out. You also recharge your customer. It works for everyone. Easier, more convenient for customers. The agents make money. It's also easier for us in terms of deploying recharges. So that is what it is.
And have I missed, Jaideep? You want to. Yeah. Just a couple of more questions as I noted down. One question was on the dilution of margin in Airtel Money. Yeah. Yeah. That was the question.
I don't see any reason why it will be. I mean, because of the business model, there is no chance of dilution of that margin. But yes, dilution is also dependent on the corresponding impact of devaluation and many other stuff. But on a constant currency basis, there is no reason why mobile money margin will be dropped. The last question was on fixed frequency charge increase in Gabon. If I understood it correctly, the impact is $2 million per quarter. That's the impact because that has gone up by $2 million per quarter.
And by the way, on the mobile money business a bit, we actually expanded our EBITDA in the last financial year. So it's an expansion of a contraction. If you expand EBITDA of part of the business, it's actually appreciative to the EBITDA of the full business. So that's what happened in the last financial year.
The next question we have is from Maurice Patrick of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, Segun. Can you hear me okay this time? Yes. Go ahead. Great. The UK Telecom networks are working. Excellent. Right. Couple of questions from my side, please. You said in your prepared remarks, Segun, that you would have built 3,000 sites this year, taking your total to 34,500. I'm just. As we look forward for the next couple of years, how many more sites do you think you'll build? And if, in fact, most of those are likely to be in sort of new rural areas? So that's the first question. Maybe I'll just pause you. Maybe take that one first. Okay.
We built about 3,000 sites last year. That's what I said. I didn't indicate how many we're going to build this year.
But just to give you some color, we do build the same number of sites every year. So you're going to see a similar number of sites being built in the next financial year. Also, for the breakdown of the 3,000, about 900 of them were in rural areas in the last financial year. 3,000, 900 in rural areas, about 2,001 in urban areas. Some are for coverage, meaning additional coverage in areas where we're not covered. Some are for capacity, mainly in urban areas where we do have sites, but we need additional capacity to offload the traffic. So that's a rough calculation or the split of the 3,000 sites. And probably we'll do similar numbers in the next financial year.
Okay. And just linked to that, are the majority of those new sites going on existing towers, or are there new towers being built by BTS programs?
I'd be good to get some sense on that. Thank you.
It's a combination of both. I mean, of course, in the urban areas, we already do have many of the telco-fit sites. So it's faster and easier for every of us to load and the tunings on the current sites. But if you're increasing any coverage in rural areas, so in areas that are on the fringes of key urban centers, they've got to be new sites. And we do have quite a number of telco partners who are willing to invest in new sites on our behalf.
Is it probably like 50/50 in terms of those 3,000 sites on BTS and Colo?
I can't say what the split is now. Alastair will give an answer on what the split is. Go on again.
Well, again, it depends on each country.
In that particular country, whether we are putting more rural or more urban, there are many models it can work. So it's very difficult to give a percentage as an overall level because it keeps changing. But the point is that if the site is already available, then we definitely take that site, whichever tower co. it is there. There's no intention of build-to-suit a new tower if already a tower is existing and that is suiting our requirement, or that is fulfilling our requirement, then immediately we take that. That's the philosophy which we follow.
And then sorry to kind of keep getting the questions. But on the mobile money side, you talked about increasing your network by 37% to 109,000 points, if I'm not wrong. How much of that is taking it to new areas, new geographic areas, so of that 37% growth?
Presumably, a large part of that's Nigeria, presumably. But maybe walk us through how much of that is densification of your existing estate and how much of it's going to new areas, be it rural or Nigeria. Thank you.
Yeah. Well, we have very much mobile money business in six months that we've gone on the French-speaking countries where we continue to expand our footprint. Nigeria is at the early stages of our rollout. So we do roll out quite a number of sites in Nigeria as well. If you want the split, we can give you the split at a later time. But we just look for where the opportunity is and where the need is. We don't have any set formula for saying this number of sites should go to Nigeria, or should go into Uganda, or should go into Zambia.
We do follow where the money is and put sites where it is required. So there's no formula for locating the site. It depends on local requirements and where the opportunity is.
Maybe I'll ask the question badly. Is it going to new areas, or is it more in existing areas?
It depends on the majority of the particular country we're talking about. In a place like Uganda, where we have a very established mobile money business, in Zambia, where we more or less, I mean, have very dense and wide distribution infrastructure, we might just put additional sites in urban areas to offload traffic from existing sites. So that's what you're going to see. In a place like Nigeria, where we're just at the very early part of the curve, you're going to see more sites in new areas. We're basically just starting the business anyway.
Same thing in DRC. I mentioned DRC as a good example of a revenue driver for mobile money business for us. We've doubled the number of sites in DRC. Those are the things we do. Every country's got a particular requirement. And we do size the distribution objective to suit our objective in that particular market. So it's not one size for everyone. It depends on the level of maturity, the need of the market. But we don't shy away from locating outlets where the outlets are needed. In Nigeria, it's going to be greenfield because we're just at the early part of launching the business in Nigeria.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Alastair for any questions from the webcast. Yeah. Thank you.
So I guess a number of the questions I think we have already addressed, particularly Nigeria pricing and the Nigerian environment. Perhaps one for you, Jaideep. There's just a couple of questions on the goodwill impairment of approximately $1 billion. Impairment.
That's fine.
That's fine. I thought it'd be good for you to address it just and the declining value of the PPE assets over here. Yeah. Thank you. Thank y ou.
So on this particular question, first of all, this is not impairment. Impairment is a very different thing that when my carrying value of the business goes down below goodwill, then we do the impairment. This is just a translation.
As I mentioned that, if you remember, the foreign currency translation reserve impact of $1 billion, which has gone into the net equity, a large part of that, almost 70%-80% of that, is actually coming from the translation of goodwill to local currency, sorry, the new currency. So this is the way it works. So when we established goodwill, the currency of naira was 155. And the value in that time, the dollar value was, let's say, $3 billion. Now that there is a devaluation of currency happened, and since the local currency book local book is maintained in local currency, now when I translate it back by 1,303, there is a natural depreciation or devaluation impact in the goodwill that gets translated and accounted for in the foreign currency translation reserve. So it is not impairment.
What was the second question? Yeah.
That was one.
That was the question. Okay.
If there are no more questions, I'd like to just take this opportunity to formally introduce you to Sunil, Sunil Taldar, who is going to take over from here there from cost of delay. Sunil, you want to say some few words too? Yes.
Thanks, Segun. Good afternoon. Good morning. And thank you once again for joining this call. By way of introduction, very quickly, I joined Bharti Airtel about 7 years ago and used to run the market operations for Airtel in India before joining Airtel Africa. Since joining Airtel Africa in mid-October, I've traveled to 9 out of our 14 operating countries, which contribute to circa 85% of our total revenues. And I got this opportunity to interact with more than 200 colleagues, customers, channel partners, regulatory authorities, and other industry leaders.
I must say I'm very encouraged by the opportunities I saw to grow our business across B2C and B2B for both GSM and mobile money and serve our communities by driving digital adoption and financial inclusion. Demographics in markets we operate in are very, very attractive and resilient economies despite all challenges that we've seen in the last financial year. Categories we operate in have low penetration for both GSM and mobile money, offering us land grab opportunity to continue to grow our base. Young and aspiring population offers us an opportunity to continue to drive data usage and data revenue growth as a customer's upgrade from feature phone to smartphone and demand for connectivity grows. I see clear opportunities to drive digitization and work with our network or channel partners to deliver great customer experience, improve productivity, and sweat our assets better.
Overall, I must say I'm really excited to be part of the Airtel Africa team and look forward to interacting with you in July when I come and share our results at the end of quarter one. I'll hand it over back to Segun. Thank you.
Yes, yeah. Thank you, Sunil. Finally, I mean, I'd just like to say again that Africa is a continent of opportunities. It's been a huge privilege for me to lead this business over the last three years. I believe that the company is ready to continue to deliver on the opportunities we have in Africa. I also look forward to taking on my new role as the chair of the Airtel Africa Charitable Foundation. I will continue to be in touch with the Airtel Africa family.
Seizing this opportunity to say thank you to the entire scope, some of them are on this call, our employees from over 43 different countries, who are 43 different nationalities working for us, and, of course, to the board for their support and guidance over the last three years. With that, I say thank you to everyone who's joined this call. Thank you. Have a good afternoon.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.