Optasia's own targets point to a much slower second half - Salvador Anglada — Optasia CEO Salvador Anglada

Optasia reported a 58.1% jump in first-half revenue on Monday in its maiden interim results as a JSE-listed company. The full-year target it published alongside those numbers implies growth will slow sharply over the remaining six months – and, at the bottom of the range, that revenue will go backwards.

Revenue for the six months to 30 June rose to US$185.3-million from $117.2-million. Adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) grew 44.8% to $77.9-million, normalised net income 39.8% to $39.3-million and profit for the period 58.3% to $36.9-million.

Distributed value – the money Optasia’s partners advanced to their customers on the back of its credit decisions – rose 45.9% to $3.5-billion. Headline earnings came in at 2.79 US cents a share, up 50.3%, and adjusted free cash flow more than doubled to $32.7-million, lifting cash conversion to 41.9% from 24.3%.

Against that, the group has updated its FY2026 target to 30-40% growth in revenue, adjusted Ebitda and normalised net income.

Optasia turned over $265.4-million in 2025. Thirty percent growth would take the full year to $345-million; 40% would take it to $371.5-million. Subtract the $185.3-million already banked in the first half and the second half has to deliver between $159.7-million and $186.2-million. The company made $148.2-million in the second half of last year, so the target implies year-on-year growth of somewhere between 7.8% and 25.7% – against the 58.1% just reported.

Measured sequentially the picture is starker: the bottom of the range would see second-half revenue come in 13.8% below the first half. The top of the range would see it flat.

Optasia gives three reasons for the expected slowdown:

Airtime credit services in Nigeria were suspended in April after the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission brought in new consumer-lending rules. All operator partners were live again by 24 June, but under a multi-provider structure in which customers are allocated on performance rather than exclusivity. Nigeria was about 14% of group revenue in FY2025 and fell to under 4% in the second quarter. The full-year target assumes the current run-rate and treats any further recovery as upside.
A longstanding partner has taken over day-to-day management of overdraft services in Uganda and Ghana, with Cameroon to follow in the second half. Optasia says the affected services carry a lower margin, so the hit to reported revenue is larger than the hit to profit.
The first half was flattered by currency. The group says reported revenue and profit benefited from favourable translation of local-market earnings into dollars, and that its full-year expectations assume none of that continues.

Speaking on a media call on Monday morning, CEO Salvador Anglada said the group had not only avoided downgrading its targets but had expanded them. Both claims can be true: the range may well be wider than what Optasia gave at listing, while the arithmetic still describes a marked deceleration.

Market concentration

Ghana alone accounted for approximately 31.5% of group revenue in the first half, or roughly $58-million. The three largest markets together made up about 57%. Optasia says it expects its revenue base to become progressively more diversified as newer deployments scale, and it launched in Gabon and South Sudan during the period, with 12 more deployments in the delivery phase and more than eight targeted for the second half.

But the concentration got worse during the half, not better. The reason is Nigeria. As the company acknowledges, the relative weight of the top three markets was inflated by the temporary loss of a market that was 14% of revenue last year.

Read: South Africa’s biggest banks are lining up behind Optasia

The business mix is shifting fast underneath all of it. Micro Finance Solutions revenue grew 83.7% to $133-million and now accounts for 72% of the group, up from 62%. Airtime Credit Solutions, the original business, grew 16.6% to $51.1-million. The adjusted Ebitda margin fell to 42% from 45.9%, the take rate rose to 5.3% from 4.9% and the default rate to 1.3% from 1.1%.