Nigeria, Nov. 1 -- A moderate jump in turnover, driven by a strong data revenue growth, set the stage for a 375.3 per cent increase in the net profit of Airtel Africa in the first half of the year, compared to a year ago.

For the network service provider, cutting down finance cost also provided a further boost.

Income from data services has now confined voice revenue to the second place as the wireless operator's top revenue source, according to its latest financial report published on Tuesday.

Airtel Africa highlighted a stronger dollar as a key factor that strengthened its revenue performance, the greenback being the reporting currency of the company, which runs telecoms and mobile money services in fourteen markets across the contin...