Airtel Africa is winding up Airtel Kenya Telesonic Limited, its wholesale fiber and internet subsidiary in Kenya, just two years after launching it.
The company’s own financial statements, filed for the year ended 31 December 2025, confirm the shutdown. Airtel Kenya Telesonic recorded a net loss of KES 16.1 million for 2025, more than five times the KES 2.9 million loss it posted in 2024.
With accumulated losses now at KES 19.08 million against a total asset base of just KES 284,275, the directors concluded the company could not continue as a going concern.
The decision was formalized through a series of regulatory steps, according to Business Daily. During 2025, Airtel Kenya Telesonic filed a notice to surrender its Network Facilities Provider Tier 2 (NFPT2) license, numbered TL/NFP/T2/01269, to the Communications Authority of Kenya.
On January 21, 2026, the Authority wrote back asking for the original license booklet to be returned for cancellation by January 30, 2026. The company submitted the booklet on February 6, 2026, and a board resolution confirming the surrender was passed the same day.
The company is now waiting for gazettement and the completion of remaining termination procedures.
Since the business is no longer being run as a going concern, the 2025 accounts were prepared on a liquidation basis rather than the usual approach, meaning assets are valued at historical cost or fair value, whichever is lower.
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Airtel Kenya Telesonic reported zero revenue in both 2024 and 2025. Its only asset of note, a network facilities license, had a gross value of KES 15 million.
It was fully amortized by the end of 2025, with KES 14 million of that amortization charged in 2025 alone, wiping the intangible asset off the books entirely. Cash on hand at year end stood at just KES 284,275.
On the other side of the balance sheet, the company owed KES 18.5 million to Airtel Networks Kenya Limited, a fellow subsidiary, classified as a related party payable.
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Total liabilities of KES 19.26 million against almost no assets left the company with negative equity of nearly KES 19 million.
The company’s expenses in 2025 were modest but telling of a business in decline: KES 1.2 million in license and regulatory fees, KES 854,192 in audit fees, and the KES 14 million amortization charge.
A deferred tax asset of KES 4.68 million was not recognized in the accounts because management judged it unlikely that future taxable profits would materialize to use it against.
Airtel Kenya Telesonic was incorporated as a private limited company in Kenya, wholly owned by Airtel Telesonic Kenya Holdings (UK) Limited, which held all 1,000 issued shares at KES 100 each.
Its two directors, Sanjeet Kumar Pokala and Ashish Malhotra, both Indian nationals, signed off the final accounts on March 31, 2026.
Deloitte & Touche audited the statements and, while giving an unqualified opinion that the accounts present a true and fair view, flagged an emphasis of matter, noting that the statements were not prepared on a going concern basis given the license surrender and wind-down.
Telesonic was set up as Airtel Africa’s dedicated wholesale fiber arm, aimed at supplying data infrastructure to governments, large enterprises, and cloud hyperscalers across the telco’s 14 African markets.
It is also tied into the 2Africa submarine cable project alongside Meta, Vodacom and MTN, and operates more than 78,000km of terrestrial fiber across the continent.
However, in Kenya specifically, the unit could not compete effectively against established players like Safaricom, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Seacom, and MTN’s Bayobab, and never turned a profit since it began operating.
