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Start by aligning the reporting periods and measures
Airtel Africa plc reports group results in US dollars. MTN Group Limited reports in South African rand. Airtel’s FY2026 ended on 31 March 2026; MTN’s FY2025 ended on 31 December 2025, and its more recent H1 2026 interim period ended on 30 June 2026. Use those labels whenever you compare a figure. In particular, do not compare a full-year result with a half-year result as though they cover the same length of time.
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The headline revenue measures also differ: Airtel reports total revenue in the figures below, while MTN’s FY2025 and H1 2026 figures are for service revenue. EBITDA definitions differ too. Airtel’s FY2026 margin is based on underlying EBITDA; MTN’s FY2025 result uses EBITDA before once-off items, while its H1 2026 margin is reported on a constant-currency basis. The numbers are useful indicators of each company’s reported performance, but they are not a clean ranking of profitability.
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|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting period and reporting currency | FY2026, year ended 31 March 2026; US dollars. | FY2025, year ended 31 December 2025, and H1 2026, six months ended 30 June 2026; South African rand. | Periods differ. Do not treat MTN’s interim result as a full-year result or compare rand and dollar totals without a consistent conversion and time basis. |
| Revenue and growth | FY2026 total revenue was $6,415 million, up 29.5% reported and 24.0% in constant currency. | FY2025 service revenue was R218.5 billion, up 22.9% reported and 22.7% in constant currency. H1 2026 service revenue was R115.3 billion, up 9.7% reported and 17.5% in constant currency. | Total revenue and service revenue are not identical measures. Reported and constant-currency growth answer different questions; use the issuer’s definitions and period. |
| EBITDA and margin | FY2026 underlying EBITDA was $3,162 million, up 37.2% reported and 30.4% in constant currency; underlying EBITDA margin was 49.3%. | FY2025 EBITDA before once-off items was R98.53 billion, up 64.0% reported and 36.8% in constant currency; group margin was 43.5%. In H1 2026, EBITDA before once-off items grew 24.4% in constant currency and the constant-currency margin was 47.6%. | Definitions and periods differ. Do not conclude that one operator is inherently more profitable from these margins alone. |
| Profit or earnings measure | FY2026 profit after tax was $813 million, compared with $328 million in the prior year. | In H1 2026, adjusted HEPS rose 21.3% to 793 cents, while reported HEPS fell 5.8% to 615 cents. | Profit after tax and headline earnings per share are different measures. MTN’s adjusted and reported HEPS also tell different stories; identify which one you use. |
All figures in this table are issuer-reported in Airtel Africa’s FY2026 annual report, MTN’s FY2025 results and MTN’s H1 2026 interim results. “Constant currency” adjusts for currency movements using the issuer’s stated method; it is not the same as the growth experienced by an investor measuring returns in their own currency.
Compare the businesses’ growth engines
Data demand and network expansion
Airtel Africa’s FY2026 mobile-services revenue grew 22.6% in constant currency. Data revenue grew 35.2% in constant currency, alongside growth in data customers and data ARPU. Data traffic increased 48.5%, mobile-services customers grew 10.5% to 183.5 million, and 4G coverage reached 75.6% of the population. Airtel also reported that 5G was operational in six markets. These are company-reported FY2026 figures; they describe the scale and use of its network, not a guarantee that investment will produce the same growth in later periods.
MTN reported 29.2% constant-currency data-revenue growth in H1 2026. That is a six-month result, whereas Airtel’s cited data growth is for a full financial year. Compare the trend across subsequent, similarly defined periods rather than treating the rates as directly comparable.
Mobile money and fintech
Airtel Money revenue grew 28.4% in constant currency in FY2026 and reached $1,355 million in reported currency. The company reported 54.1 million customers and $195.9 billion in total processed value for the year; Q4 annualized processed value exceeded $215 billion. Its mobile-money underlying EBITDA margin was 50.8%, down 196 basis points in reported currency. Airtel said revised intra-group agreements affected segment presentation but not consolidated group revenue, EBITDA or growth outlook.
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MTN’s fintech revenue grew 13.3% in H1 2026. MoMo monthly active users rose 12.1% to 70.8 million, and fintech transaction value increased 33.8% to US$330.5 billion in that interim period. These customer and activity measures are not interchangeable with Airtel Money’s customers or annual processed value. Check each company’s definitions, the period covered and whether a value is annual, interim or annualized before drawing conclusions about scale or momentum.
Test growth against cash needs, investment and debt
Airtel Africa: planned investment and leverage
Airtel Africa invested $884 million in capital expenditure in FY2026 and guided to approximately $1.1 billion for FY2026/27. That is company guidance, not a guaranteed outturn. It reported net cash generated from operations of $3,195 million, net debt of $5,590 million at year-end and leverage of 1.8 times net debt to underlying EBITDA; lease-adjusted leverage was 0.5 times. Airtel also said it added more than 3,250 sites and around 3,200 kilometres of fibre in FY2026.
For an investor, the question is not simply whether higher capex is good or bad. Consider whether network spending supports capacity, coverage and service quality, and whether the resulting cash generation can fund investment, debt obligations and shareholder distributions. Track delivery against the guidance and the movement in both reported and lease-adjusted leverage.
MTN: capex and debt measures
MTN’s FY2025 capex excluding leases was R38.471 billion, with capex intensity of 17.0%; its net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 0.3 times at year-end. In H1 2026, capex excluding leases was R19.7 billion and net debt-to-EBITDA remained 0.3 times. The interim capex figure covers six months, not a full year.
Do not rank Airtel’s dollar capex or leverage against MTN’s rand figures by comparing the printed numbers. First align the period, currency conversion, treatment of leases and debt definition. Then consider capex relative to revenue and operating cash generation, and whether leverage is stable while the companies invest.
Separate operating progress from currencies and country risk
Reported growth can diverge from constant-currency growth when local currencies move. For Airtel Africa, FY2026 total revenue rose 29.5% in reported currency versus 24.0% in constant currency; the company attributed the difference to currency appreciation in most markets. Its FY2026 finance costs included $127 million of derivative and foreign-exchange gains, largely due to naira appreciation, following $179 million of derivative and foreign-exchange losses in the prior period. When assessing earnings growth, distinguish changes in underlying operations from translation and foreign-exchange gains or losses.
MTN’s reported and constant-currency rates also help show how currency affects results. In FY2025, service revenue growth was 22.9% reported and 22.7% in constant currency. Country contributions varied: reported service revenue rose 50.5% in Nigeria and 62.4% in Ghana, while South Africa rose 2.0%. These company-reported rates illustrate why “Africa” should not be treated as one uniform market. Examine the countries that matter most to each operator, including local inflation, currency movements, regulation and operating conditions.
Airtel’s FY2026 reporting also describes changes in local rules for mobile-money transactions, including levies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Zambia during 2025/26. Those examples concern named jurisdictions and should not be generalized to every Airtel market or to MTN. More broadly, assess regulatory exposure market by market rather than assuming one rule applies across the continent.
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Assess dividends as a policy and a cash commitment
Airtel Africa recommended a total FY2026 dividend of 7.1 US cents per share, up 9.2% year on year, and describes its policy as progressive. MTN declared an ordinary FY2025 dividend of 500 South African cents per share, up 45%; it declared no interim dividend for H1 2026. These distributions relate to different financial periods and are denominated in different currencies, so the per-share amounts are not directly comparable.
Best Value
Dividend growth is not the same as yield or dividend safety. To compare the income case, check the current share price and currency conversion, then evaluate the payout against sustainable cash generation, investment needs and debt. A stated policy or a past increase does not by itself establish what future payments will be.
Check valuation before deciding which stock is cheaper
The operating results above do not establish which company’s shares are cheaper today. A proper comparison needs synchronized market data for both securities: share price and date, market capitalization, enterprise value, earnings or cash-flow multiples, and dividend yield. None of those current, comparable valuation figures is established here, so a ranking based on valuation would be unsupported.
When gathering those figures, use the same market date and be explicit about the listing, trading currency and share basis. Match each multiple to a consistent period and earnings definition; distinguish trailing results from forecasts, and adjust enterprise value consistently for debt, cash and leases. Compare yield using the current share price and the relevant declared or trailing dividend, while checking whether the dividend is covered by cash available after investment. A lower multiple or higher yield is not automatically better if it reflects weaker growth, greater risk or a less sustainable payout.
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A practical checklist before investing
- Align the period. Compare full years with full years or interim periods with interim periods, and label the dates clearly.
- Match the measure. Separate total revenue from service revenue, underlying EBITDA from EBITDA before once-off items, and reported earnings from adjusted earnings.
- Look beyond headline growth. Check constant-currency trends alongside reported figures, and consider how currency gains, losses and translation affect your own investment returns.
- Test the business mix. Examine data and financial-services growth, but verify each operator’s customer, active-user and processed-value definitions.
- Connect capex to cash and debt. Account for investment periods, leases and debt definitions; assess whether growth spending leaves room for obligations and distributions.
- Investigate country exposure. Review the major contributors and their currencies, inflation, regulations and operating conditions rather than relying on a continent-wide generalization.
- Calculate valuation from synchronized market data. Compare price, market capitalization, enterprise value, relevant multiples and dividend yield on a consistent basis before calling either share cheap.
The dated company results point to active data and digital-financial-services businesses at both operators, but they do not settle the investment choice. The decision depends on comparable future performance, country and currency risks, cash demands, dividend capacity and valuation at the price available to you.
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