Airtel Africa has raised its full-year capital expenditure plans to between $875 million and $900 million, the telco large’s most aggressive funding cycle but. The expanded capex, mixed with a landmark partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink to ship high-speed satellite tv for pc web, underlines Airtel’s technique to cement its position on the centre of Africa’s digital financial system.
The corporate’s newest half-year outcomes to September 2025 present the fruits of that technique: group income rose 24.5% in fixed foreign money to $2.98 billion, whereas EBITDA margins climbed to 49% within the second quarter of 2026. CEO Sunil Taldar mentioned the stronger efficiency has given Airtel the arrogance to speed up investments.
“Our technique has been targeted on offering a superior buyer expertise and constructing further capability to facilitate digital and monetary inclusion,” he mentioned. “The energy of those outcomes offers us the arrogance to extend our capex steering as we make investments to seize the complete potential throughout our markets and ship long-term worth for all stakeholders.”
The place the $900 million goes
About 87% of Airtel Africa’s annual capital expenditure is dedicated to growth-focused initiatives that purpose to broaden community capability, modernise infrastructure, and strengthen connectivity throughout its 14 working markets. This underscores the corporate’s aggressive drive to deepen its presence and improve service high quality throughout Africa’s quickly digitising economies.
The biggest portion of this spending, estimated between $600 million and $650 million, is directed towards community and infrastructure build-out. This contains increasing cellular tower websites, extending fibre backhaul, and making ready for the deployment of next-generation applied sciences equivalent to 4G and 5G. The objective is to enhance service reliability, increase pace, and accommodate the rising knowledge demand throughout city and rural areas.
Airtel has additionally made vital investments in spectrum and licence renewals, spending about $152 million in FY 2024, together with $127 million for the renewal of its 3G licence in Nigeria, guaranteeing continued regulatory compliance and positioning the community to deal with future technological upgrades.
One other main focus space is IT, cybersecurity, and digital transformation, the place Airtel is investing to modernise its knowledge centres, improve IT programs, and reinforce software and API safety. These enhancements are important to supporting the corporate’s increasing portfolio of digital providers and sustaining person belief.
As well as, a sizeable share of spending is devoted to distribution networks and digital channels, together with agent-network development, cellular app growth, and omnichannel integration. These efforts are significantly vital for Airtel Cash, the corporate’s fast-growing fintech division, which depends on digital infrastructure and agent presence to broaden entry to monetary providers.
In Nigeria, Airtel’s largest market, capital expenditure for Q2 2025 was reported at $39 million, representing about 1.7% of whole group capex for the quarter. This funding targeted on incremental community enlargement and spectrum upgrades to help the corporate’s ongoing digital and monetary inclusion technique.
Digital infrastructure and new horizons
The elevated funding comes at a time when knowledge demand and smartphone utilization are hovering throughout Africa. Smartphone penetration in Airtel’s footprint has climbed to 46.8%, and the corporate expects that quantity to develop sharply as machine prices fall and 4G protection expands.
Airtel’s guess on connectivity extends past terrestrial networks. In Could 2025, the corporate introduced a strategic settlement with SpaceX to combine Starlink’s satellite tv for pc web providers into its enterprise and retail choices.
The collaboration goals to ship high-speed broadband to distant colleges, hospitals, and communities, areas the place laying fibre or constructing towers is expensive or impractical. Starlink has already secured licences in 9 of Airtel’s 14 markets, with approvals within the remaining nations in course of.
Community partnerships and regional technique
Past SpaceX, Airtel has struck a number of network-sharing agreements to boost effectivity and cut back rollout prices. In August 2025, it signed a strategic infrastructure-sharing take care of Vodacom Group protecting Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique. This follows comparable preparations with MTN in Uganda and Nigeria introduced earlier within the yr.
These partnerships are designed to speed up fibre deployment, optimise tower utilization, and prolong broadband entry, particularly in underserved markets the place infrastructure duplication stays expensive.
Regardless of robust momentum, execution threat stays. Some areas, equivalent to East Africa, have seen short-term slowdowns in capex on account of supply-chain and macroeconomic pressures. Foreign money devaluations, inflation, and vitality prices additionally threaten to erode good points if not fastidiously managed.
Nonetheless, Airtel’s administration is assured. “We’re constructing the muse for a very digital Africa — from cellular connectivity to fintech inclusion,” Taldar mentioned. “Our partnership with SpaceX, mixed with file ranges of funding, positions Airtel Africa for long-term development.”
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