Good news for Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom investors

The share prices of South Africa’s biggest telecoms companies have performed exceptionally well in 2025.

An investor who bought shares split evenly between Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Blue Label when the JSE opened in January 2025 would find their investment worth roughly 21.64% more by 16 April.

That means the value of a R1,000 investment consisting of R250 shares in each company would have been worth R1,216.40 in just three and a half months.

The return is not only far greater than inflation of roughly 0.9% over the period, but much better than the interest those who put their money in a savings account would have earned.

Interest rates on savings accounts in South Africa peak at around 10% over an entire year on the best possible products.

The best telecoms performer has been Cell C’s biggest shareholder Blue Label.

The firm’s share price improved from R5.75 at the opening of the markets on 2 January 2025 to R7.57 by the close of markets on 16 April 2025.

This 31.65% increase means a R1,000 investment in the company at the start of the year would be worth over R1,300 in mid-April.

Blue Label has been buoyed by growing investor confidence that its recapitalisation of Cell C will yield a sharp increase in earnings.

However, it remains to be seen whether this will come to fruition, as Blue Label’s latest results showed that Cell C continues to struggle.

A relatively flat revenue increase means that Cell C is still not profitable, with a loss of R149.24 million recorded in the six months ending November 2024.

South Africa’s biggest mobile network, Vodacom, has seen its share price increase by 25.19% year-to-date.

Vodacom has continued to report a robust financial performance despite a tough economic environment with high interest rates and constrained consumer demand.

Part of its positive perception in the eyes of investors is revenue from so-called “beyond mobile” streams including digital, financial, fixed, and IoT services, continuing to show impressive growth.

Sanlam Private Wealth analyst Dumisani Chiume recently said that higher earnings growth expectations from Vodacom’s management team brought the company back into consideration for portfolio managers.

MTN’s Nigerian headache cools

South Africa’s second-biggest mobile network, MTN, recorded a slightly lower share price increase of 21.73%.

MTN’s share price plummeted in recent years as a weakening Nigerian Naira heavily impacted its revenues. Nigeria is MTN’s biggest market in terms of customers and revenue.

In the 2024 financial year, the MTN Group recorded a R1.1 billion loss, driven primarily by a 44.8% decline in service revenue in Nigeria.

If the Naira had remained at the same level it was at the start of the year, MTN’s revenue would have increased 35.6% and it would have avoided a loss.

Fortunately, the value of the Naira has remained fairly stable during 2025, which has benefitted MTN’s share price.

The performance last listed telecoms company operating a mobile network — Telkom — has been less extraordinary.

However, an 8.04% increase during the period is far from a terrible return.

In the year-to-date, Telkom’s share price peaked at nearly R39 in early April 2025 before receding to between R37 and R38.

That came shortly after the company released a trading update with a “reasonable degree” of certainty that its earnings would increase by a minimum of 300% for the year ending 31 March 2025.

That is primarily due to a once-off profit from the sale of its tower and mast business for a provisional R6.58 billion. Headline earnings per share are also expected to increase by roughly 10%.

Telkom’s current strategy is to focus on leveraging its extensive fixed footprint rather than continuing substantial investments in its mobile division, where growth has slowed.

The table below summarises the changes in the share prices of Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Blue Label over the last three and a half months.