Airtel Africa will be tasked with growing its mobile money base, increasing data usage and improving mobile penetration rates in a bid to increase profitability.

The division’s CEO Raghunath Mandava outlined the focus in parent company Bharti Airtel’s earnings statement for fiscal Q2 2017 (calendar Q3).

Mandava revealed Airtel Money recorded year-on-year transaction value growth of 31 per cent with the company processing $4.9 billion on its platform in the recent quarter.

By the end of the period, its user base grew 3.5 per cent from the same period of 2016 to 9.5 million. The total number of transactions grew 24 per cent year-on-year to 424 million.

Airtel Money operates across Airtel’s entire African footprint of 15 countries including Nigeria, Chad, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The company also offers 3G across all 15 markets, and 4G in three.

In addition to the growth in its money service, Mandava said the company experienced an increase in underlying revenue on the continent and a boost in data penetration.

“Our efforts to create a profitable business model for Africa continues,” Mandava said.

The Africa business generated net income before exceptional items of INR3.1 million ($48,000) in fiscal Q2, compared to a loss of INR6 million in the same period of 2016.