Airtel closes its optical fiber business in Kenya and exits the African market for the third time in

Airtel Africa closes Kenya's wholesale optical fiber subsidiary and withdraws from underperforming markets

Airtel Africa is gradually shutting down its wholesale optical fiber and Internet subsidiary in Kenya, Airtel Kenya Telesonic Limited. This decision was only two years after the establishment of the subsidiary. The shutdown makes Kenya the third African market Airtel Africa has exited in the past five years, with the company choosing to abandon underperforming assets rather than try to turn things around.

The company's financial statements submitted for the year ended December 31, 2025 confirmed the withdrawal. Data shows that Airtel Kenya Telesonic's net loss in 2025 is 16.1 million Kenyan Shillings (approximately US$124,000), more than five times the loss of 2.9 million Kenyan Shillings (approximately US$22,400) in 2024. According to Bharti Airtel's documents, given that the cumulative losses amount to KShs 19.08 million and the total asset base is only KShs 284,275 million, the board of directors believes that the company cannot continue to exist as a going concern entity.

The company has submitted an application to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) to waive its "secondary network infrastructure provider" license at the end of 2025. CA has approved the shutdown, the Company Registration Office is currently processing the cancellation process, and Airtel Kenya Telesonic is expected to be removed from the registry by December 2026. The financial report shows that the company has no revenue record in 2024 and 2025; its only asset worthy of attention, a network facility license valued at Kenyan Shillings, has been fully amortized before the end of 2025.

Airtel's familiar exit model

This is not the first time Airtel has responded to challenges in Africa by stopping losses rather than deepening investment.

As early as 2021, Airtel wrote off its stake in the Ghanaian joint venture AirtelTigo based on regulatory documents at the time. The joint venture was jointly established by Airtel and Millicom's Tigo brand in 2017, and Airtel subsequently transferred its entire stake to the Ghanaian government at a nominal price. In addition, Airtel agreed in March 2021 to sell its tower station portfolio in Madagascar and Malawi (a total of 1229 tower stations) to Helios Towers for a total of US$108 million.

The transaction in Madagascar was completed in November 2021, while the transaction in Malawi (involving 723 sites and worth US$55 million) was completed in March 2022. Helios and Airtel also signed a 12-year service agreement for the acquired site. In these cases, the pattern is similar: exit from markets or business lines where the company is not its most competitive and reinvest resources into markets that drive the group's growth.

Telesonic itself was launched in February 2024 and aims to become Airtel Africa's continent-wide wholesale data platform, relying on more than 75,000 kilometers of terrestrial optical fiber and its stake in the 2Africa submarine cable system, which works with Meta, Vodacom and MTN.

In Kenya, the division was unable to compete effectively, faced pressure from strong rivals such as Safaricom, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Seacom and MTN's Bayobab, and never achieved a profit.

The situation in Nigeria is completely different

While the Kenya branch was closed, its Nigeria counterpart was expanding in reverse.

Airtel Nigeria Telesonic Limited obtained a national long-distance, Internet service provider and major sales installation license from Nigeria Communications Commission in 2024. It currently promotes a range of ready-made wholesale products on Airtel Nigeria's corporate portal, including dedicated Internet access, international private leased circuits, and voice and SMS termination services for businesses.

Nigeria remains Airtel Africa's largest market. According to the company's own performance report, in the first half of 2025, Nigeria contributed 24% of the group's revenue, and EBITDA profit margin hit a record high of 56%. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, Airtel Africa Group's overall after-tax profit doubled to US$813 million, while revenue in Nigeria increased by 52.92% to US$1.59 billion during the same period.

Although Airtel Africa has not disclosed its plans for Telesonic in the remaining 13 markets, the brand continues to be listed as active in Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This shows that Kenya's current withdrawal does not mean a withdrawal of wholesale optical fiber business across the continent.

Deloitte & Touche, which audited the accounts of the Kenyan subsidiary, issued an unqualified opinion, believing that the statements truly and fairly reflect the financial position, and pointed out that since they were in the liquidation stage, the statements were prepared on a liquidation basis.