CompanyGraph
Airtel Africa Plc
AAF · United Kingdom
Runs mobile phone and money transfer services across 14 African countries on one network that treats every border like it isn't there.
Airtel Africa runs mobile voice, data, and money services across 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by holding a separate spectrum licence in each one — those licences, granted by each country's national regulator, are what allow any call or transaction to happen at all on its towers. Airtel has stitched those 14 separate national networks together through inter-country coordination agreements and a shared billing system, so a subscriber moving between Nigeria and Uganda pays a domestic rate rather than an international one, and their Airtel Money balance follows them across every border. Because that balance cannot be transferred to a competing network and re-registering across multiple countries individually would mean starting from scratch with each local competitor, subscribers who use the service in more than one country are effectively anchored to Airtel. The whole arrangement depends on all 14 regulators continuing to honour the coordination agreement — if even one withdraws, domestic-rate roaming breaks on every route that touches that country, and the cross-border lock-in that holds the network together begins to come apart.
How does this company make money?
Airtel charges subscribers by the minute for voice calls and by the megabyte for data use. It also takes a commission on every payment or transfer made through Airtel Money. All of these charges are billed in local African currencies, and the revenue is recorded each time a call ends, a data session closes, or a money transaction completes.
What makes this company hard to replace?
A subscriber's Airtel Money balance cannot be moved to a competing network — it stays inside Airtel's system or is lost. A subscriber who has registered phone numbers across multiple African countries through One Network would have to go through separate registration processes with local competitors in each country individually. And in many rural African villages, Airtel is the only operator with SIM cards available at local shops, because competing operators have not built out retail presence in those areas.
What limits this company?
In busy cities like Lagos and Nairobi, each cell tower can only carry as many calls and data sessions as the radio frequency the national regulator has allocated will allow. Building more towers or spending more money on equipment cannot increase that licensed frequency. So when the network gets congested in those cities, there is no construction fix — the ceiling is set by the regulator, not by Airtel.
What does this company depend on?
Airtel cannot operate without spectrum licences from telecommunications regulators in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and 10 other African countries. It also relies on diesel fuel supply chains to keep backup generators running at rural cell towers, submarine fibre optic cables that land in African coastal cities to carry international internet traffic, local currency banking relationships to manage the cash that sits behind Airtel Money balances, and lease agreements with landowners who host tower sites across rural sub-Saharan territories.
Who depends on this company?
Mobile money agents in rural villages earn commission income every time an Airtel Money transaction goes through — if the payment rails stopped, that income would stop. Small businesses that accept mobile payments would be forced back to cash-only transactions. Rural healthcare clinics that use Airtel's mobile data to connect with urban hospitals for telemedicine consultations would lose that link entirely.
How does this company scale?
The software that routes calls, data sessions, and money transfers can handle more subscribers without much added cost once it is built and running. What cannot scale the same way is the physical work of building and maintaining cell towers and diesel generators in remote villages — that requires local technicians on the ground, and the distances across rural sub-Saharan Africa mean that work can never be centralised or automated.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
When local African currencies lose value against the dollar, revenue that was billed in those currencies shrinks when converted, which hurts the company's overall finances. Chinese Belt and Road infrastructure projects are laying competing fibre optic networks across parts of Africa, which could reduce Airtel's advantage in connectivity. African central banks can also change the rules around mobile money at any time, including setting lower limits on how much money can move through a single transaction.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
If any one of the 14 national telecommunications regulators pulled its country out of the One Network coordination agreement — whether because of a policy change or a dispute with a neighbouring government — the domestic-rate roaming guarantee would break on every route that touches that country. The main reason subscribers stay with Airtel across borders would disappear, and the entire cross-border network would start to lose its value.