International Breweries Plc has made a strong comeback in the first quarter of 2025, posting a pre-tax profit of N35.06 billion, a significant turnaround from the loss of N89.3 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The brewer’s return to profitability stems almost entirely from improved foreign exchange dynamics which drastically lowered the company’s non-operational costs, particularly its exposure to net foreign exchange losses. That adjustment alone cleared the path for the company to reflect its core operational strength on its bottom line.

In the three months ending March 31, 2025, International Breweries generated N173.6 billion in revenue, representing a 68.2% jump from the N103.2 billion earned during the same quarter in 2024. The revenue was primarily driven by pricing adjustments and increased market penetration across its beer and malt product lines. However, some believe this top-line growth must be viewed in context: it reflects the company’s response to inflationary pressure and rising input costs, not necessarily a sign of improved consumer purchasing power.

The sharp rise in revenues was matched by a notable rise in the cost of sales, which jumped by 53.3% to N113.9 billion, from N74.3 billion the previous year. This indicates continued inflationary strain on raw materials, logistics, packaging, and energy — costs that continue to bite even as companies try to push some of the burden to consumers through price hikes.

Despite these headwinds, gross profit climbed by a substantial 106.7% to N59.6 billion, from N28.9 billion a year ago, reflecting stronger margins bolstered by more efficient cost recovery and operational scale.

Selling, administrative, and marketing expenses rose to N27.4 billion, up by 25.7% from N21.8 billion in Q1 2024. The increase underscores the company’s continued investments in branding, distribution, and logistics — critical for defending market share in Nigeria’s highly competitive beverage sector. But even with those increased costs, the company’s operations performed strongly.

The real game-changer was the dramatic reduction in non-operating expenses, particularly the foreign exchange losses that had devastated the firm’s bottom line in 2024. In Q1 2024, International Breweries recorded N80.5 billion in net foreign exchange losses, a figure that completely wiped out operating gains. In contrast, the company reported only N581.4 million in such losses in Q1 2025, marking a staggering 99.3% reduction.

This steep decline can be attributed to a relatively more stable exchange rate regime in early 2025, improved access to forex liquidity, and possibly more sophisticated hedging strategies employed by the company’s treasury team. The naira, while still under pressure, has seen less volatility compared to the dramatic devaluation episodes of 2023 and 2024, offering businesses some relief in managing dollar-denominated obligations.

Swing to Profit and Asset Position

Thanks to the forex reprieve, operating profit rebounded to N31.5 billion, reversing a deep operating loss of N80.5 billion recorded in the corresponding period last year. Pre-tax profit followed suit, swinging to N35.06 billion, an impressive recovery that underscores how critical currency stability is to the manufacturing and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors.

As of March 31, 2025, total assets stood at N742.9 billion, up slightly from N728 billion in Q1 2024, reflecting a 2.07% increase. The modest rise in assets shows the company is growing cautiously, likely prioritizing efficiency and liquidity over-aggressive expansion in a still-uncertain economic climate.

Stock Market Reaction and Investor Sentiment

Investors have responded favorably to the company’s turnaround. As of April 28, 2025, International Breweries’ shares closed at N8.47, representing a year-to-date increase of 152.6%. This performance not only signals renewed investor confidence in the brewer’s financial trajectory but also highlights the stock’s strong rebound potential following its depressed position in 2024.

Analysts believe the company’s recovery would not have been possible without the easing of forex constraints that crippled its performance last year. Nigeria’s volatile currency environment has rendered many businesses in the manufacturing sector unprofitable, especially those with dollar obligations and import-heavy operations. The Q1 2025 result now suggests that as exchange rate pressures ease, even slightly, businesses can breathe again.

No Illusion of Rising Disposable Income

While some companies’ Q1 profits have been attributed to an improved economic environment, analysts note that this profit recovery should not be misread as evidence that Nigerian consumers are spending more freely. Disposable incomes remain severely strained due to persistent inflation, job losses, and higher living costs, all of which continue to weigh heavily on demand. Many consumers have traded down to cheaper beverage options or reduced consumption altogether. The sharp rise in International Breweries’ revenue likely reflects price increases and not actual volume-led growth.

The company, like others in the beverage industry, is walking a tightrope — trying to balance profitability with affordability in a market where price elasticity is very sensitive.

African airlines saw air cargo demand plummet by 13.4% year-on-year in March 2025, the steepest decline across all global regions, even as the international air cargo market recorded its strongest March performance in history, according to the latest report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The March figures underscore an increasingly uneven global cargo recovery, with Africa’s decline standing in sharp contrast to the 4.4% growth in global air cargo demand, measured in cargo ton-kilometers (CTKs). For international operations, demand was even more robust, rising 5.5% compared to March 2024.

At a time when air cargo demand worldwide is buoyed by a mix of global industrial recovery, falling jet fuel prices, and front-loaded shipments amid looming U.S. tariff changes, the slump in Africa points to deeper issues in the region’s air logistics and trade corridors.

“March cargo volumes were strong… a historic peak for the month,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh, noting that future growth could still be tempered by unresolved trade tensions and global tariff uncertainty.

Capacity-Demand Mismatch

Ironically, while African demand plunged, available cargo capacity on the continent rose by 10.5% year-on-year. This growing disparity between supply and utilization underlines a mounting imbalance and inefficiency in Africa’s air cargo operations. Carriers appear to be adding capacity amid a shrinking market, a potentially costly mismatch that could further strain already thin profit margins.

This trend is particularly troubling given Africa’s dependence on air cargo for intra-regional trade and time-sensitive imports like pharmaceuticals, spare parts, and high-value perishables. Analysts say the disconnect may reflect broader structural challenges including weak regional integration, limited industrial production, and declining consumer demand in key African markets such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya.

The continent’s underperformance comes at a time when the global economic backdrop is broadly improving. According to IATA, world industrial production grew by 3.2% year-on-year, and global trade volumes expanded by 2.9%. Inflation in major economies also eased, which is expected to support consumer demand and business investment.

For instance, the U.S. consumer price index fell to 2.4%, the EU averaged 2.5%, Japan saw inflation decline to 3.6%, and China’s deflationary trend eased to -0.1%. These trends contributed to stronger air cargo growth in other regions.

• Asia-Pacific carriers led globally with a 9.6% increase in demand and an 11.3% rise in capacity.
• North American airlines followed closely, recording a 9.5% increase in demand with capacity growing by 6.1%.
• European carriers saw demand rise by 4.5%, with capacity increasing by 2%.
• Latin American airlines posted a 5.8% growth in demand and a 4.7% capacity increase.

Only the Middle East, alongside Africa, recorded a decline in demand. Middle Eastern airlines saw a 3.2% drop, though this was partly attributed to strong base effects from early 2024 when maritime disruptions in the Red Sea drove temporary air cargo surges.

Trade Lanes Weakening

Particularly troubling for Africa is the decline in traffic along the Africa–Asia trade lane, which has historically been a vital corridor for bilateral trade involving raw materials and manufactured goods. With trade routes such as this underperforming, African carriers face heightened vulnerability to global shifts in trade and production.

This also casts doubt on the region’s readiness to benefit from initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which was envisioned to boost intra-African trade and logistics.

Industry analysts suggest that the persistent underperformance of African air cargo is less about cyclical market changes and more indicative of long-term structural weaknesses, including fragmented regulatory environments, poor infrastructure, high costs, and weak export diversification.

They added that without coordinated policy reforms, deeper regional integration, and investment in cargo infrastructure, African airlines may continue to lag behind their global peers, even during global upswings.

IATA’s report denotes that while global air cargo has entered a new phase of post-pandemic resilience, Africa remains an outlier, and not in a good way. The 13.4% drop in demand is seen to be more than just a quarterly anomaly, with some economists describing it as a wake-up call for policymakers, investors, and aviation stakeholders across the continent.

In a telling sign of how fast artificial intelligence is reshaping the software development landscape, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has revealed that as much as 30 percent of the company’s codebase is now written by AI.

The disclosure, made during a conversation with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the recently concluded LlamaCon developer conference, underscores a broader shift in how code is being written across the tech industry, not just by humans, but increasingly by machines.

When asked what share of Microsoft’s code is now generated by AI tools, Nadella responded candidly: “About 20 to 30 percent.” He noted that the proportion varies depending on the programming language, citing more progress with Python and less with C++. That range, however, is already substantial for a company that builds software at the scale of Microsoft.

Zuckerberg didn’t offer a specific number for Meta but predicted that “within the next year, perhaps half of the development will be handled by AI instead of humans.” His projection was less about catching up to Microsoft than signaling the direction in which the entire industry is heading.

Just days before Nadella’s remark, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told investors that more than 30 percent of new code at Google is now written by AI. The numbers, while loosely defined, reflect a major transformation underway in software development workflows. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott has gone further, forecasting that by 2030, 95 percent of all code will be generated by AI.

This momentum isn’t just coming from top executives—it’s reflected in how developers work every day. Tools like GitHub Copilot, developed by Microsoft and OpenAI, are now used by more than 50,000 organizations. Developers report dramatic improvements in productivity: internal surveys show that Copilot users write code up to 55 percent faster. Some say they feel more fulfilled and spend less time on repetitive or boilerplate tasks.

In fact, many developers now consider AI-powered coding assistants essential. In trials involving enterprise developers, over two-thirds of users said they interacted with Copilot five days a week. A similar portion said they used it in languages they already knew, showing that AI tools are enhancing, not replacing, their existing expertise.

The AI coding revolution isn’t just about speed. It’s changing the entire shape of development. Engineers are spending more time designing solutions and reviewing output, rather than manually typing every line of code. This shift has required new workflows and governance structures, especially in large organizations. Many now require human approval for all AI-generated code before it’s merged into production.

Microsoft has been a frontrunner in this movement, but it’s not alone. Amazon offers its own CodeWhisperer assistant, while Google integrates its Gemini tools for coding. Even GitLab has incorporated AI-assisted development features. These tools support a wide range of programming languages, with the most traction seen in Python, JavaScript, and Java—languages that dominate AI and web development spaces.

Not coincidentally, Python has just overtaken JavaScript to become the most used language on GitHub, driven in large part by the boom in AI and machine learning projects. High-level, dynamic languages like Python and JavaScript benefit most from AI tools due to the vast amount of training data available from open-source projects and community contributions. By contrast, lower-level languages like C++ or Fortran see slower progress, due to less accessible training material and stricter syntax requirements.

Still, efforts are underway to improve AI’s performance in these languages as well. GitHub has rolled out code review support for C++, and acceptance rates for AI-suggested code in major languages now hover around 30 percent. Even niche languages are gradually receiving better support as models become more capable and context-aware.

For developers, this new era of AI-generated code represents both an opportunity and a challenge. On one hand, it reduces the cognitive load of writing mundane code. On the other, it demands new skills — from writing effective prompts to rigorously reviewing and validating AI output. Companies are now training engineers in prompt engineering, secure review practices, and how to integrate AI suggestions into larger codebases.

At the organizational level, the adoption of AI tools is rising rapidly. Nearly 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies are already using Microsoft’s 365 Copilot suite, and adoption of developer-focused tools like GitHub Copilot Enterprise is climbing just as fast. CIOs are preparing guidelines for licensing, security, and intellectual property ownership of AI-written code. Many are also building pipelines that integrate AI tools directly into development, testing, and deployment workflows.

The financial returns are promising. Companies using AI code assistants report improved developer satisfaction, faster shipping times, and smaller, more agile engineering teams. Some estimates suggest a return of nearly $3.70 for every $1 invested in generative AI tools. In one survey, more than 90 percent of CIOs said they plan to deploy Microsoft’s AI offerings within the next year.

However, there are clear caveats. No one in the industry is suggesting that AI can fully replace human engineers — at least not yet. Even Microsoft’s most aggressive forecast, that 95 percent of code will be AI-written by 2030, comes with the caveat that humans will still be essential for planning, quality control, and innovation. Analysts also point out that the exact definition of “AI-generated code” remains fuzzy, and many companies may be overstating or misclassifying certain metrics.

Security and accuracy remain major concerns. AI can accelerate development, but it can also introduce subtle bugs or vulnerabilities if not properly reviewed. Organizations are responding by enforcing stricter code review standards and adopting practices that ensure AI suggestions are vetted with the same scrutiny as human-written code.

However, the trajectory that software development is no longer just about writing code — it’s about orchestrating AI systems, guiding their output, and verifying their work – is clear. The coder of tomorrow might spend less time typing and more time directing, evaluating, and refining machine-generated solutions. This means that Satya Nadella’s comments at LlamaCon signal that the future of AI coding isn’t five or ten years away — it’s already here.