Airtel Africa has restarted preparations for the long-delayed public listing of its mobile money business, with the company now working toward a valuation of around $10 billion for the unit.
The telecom operator, which had pushed the offering back to the second half of the year, is reportedly moving closer to a London listing for Airtel Money. According to the Financial Times, the company has brought additional investment banks into the IPO syndicate, a sign that preparations have entered a more advanced stage after months of uncertainty.
The listing had initially been slated for the first half of 2026 but was postponed to the second half of the year after geopolitical tensions disrupted international supply chains and pushed up energy and logistics costs for companies across several sectors. Those same tensions, tied to the ongoing U.S. Iran conflict, appear to have worked in London’s favour this time around. Airtel Africa had earlier weighed listing the business on a Middle Eastern exchange, but the volatile regional backdrop has reportedly tilted the decision toward London’s deeper capital markets and broader pool of international investors.
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Airtel isn’t alone in adjusting its plans around the current climate. Franco German defence contractor KNDS and Bangalore based fintech platform PhonePe have also delayed their own public offerings, both citing unfavourable global economic conditions that could squeeze near term profit margins.
Citigroup is already leading the groundwork for the transaction. Beyond the expected $10 billion valuation, the offering could raise roughly $1.5 billion for Airtel Africa.
This is not the first attempt at taking Airtel Money public. The company had originally targeted a 2025 listing before pushing the timeline back earlier this year, pointing to unsettled macroeconomic conditions at the time.
The business itself has kept growing through the delays. For the financial year ending 31 March 2026, Airtel Money posted $1.36 billion in revenue, a 36.3 percent year on year increase in reported currency. Its customer base reached 54.1 million, made up of 40.9 million users across East African markets, 10.5 million across Francophone Africa, and 2.7 million in Nigeria.
The renewed IPO push arrives as mobile money keeps gaining ground across the continent, with telecom operators increasingly treating fintech as a core part of their long term strategy rather than a side business. As growth in traditional voice and data revenue slows, digital payments, remittances, merchant payments and savings products have become the more reliable engines of expansion. Airtel Money now sits alongside platforms like MTN’s MoMo PSB, Safaricom’s M-Pesa, Ethio Telecom’s Telebirr and Maroc Telecom’s MT Cash in a mobile money race that has grown steadily more competitive.
Speaking in May, Airtel Africa chief executive Sunil Taldar said the company had made good progress and remained committed to the listing as market conditions allow, adding that the intention was still to carry out the IPO in the second half of the year.
If the offering goes through at the expected valuation, it would mark one of the largest fintech linked listings to come out of Africa, and a major milestone for a business that started as a side unit inside a telecom company and has since grown into one of the continent’s largest mobile financial services platforms.
