Vodacom reports more subscribers, more revenue
Vodacom has released its preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2020, showing an increase in revenue and subscribers across the group.
The company said that group revenue is up 4.8% while group service revenue growth is up 5.0%.
In the South African business service revenue grew 2.3%, while international operations saw service revenue growth of 12.5%.
Vodacom also saw user growth in both the total customer and financial service customer segments:
- Group customers up by 5.9 million to 116 million.
- Financial services customers up by 6 million to 53.2 million.
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said an improved second-half performance in South Africa and the “sustained growth of our international businesses” contributed to the growth at the company.
“The past year has been characterised by strong customer growth – we now connect 116 million customers across the group, including Safaricom – and the benefits of prudent portfolio diversification,” said Joosub.
Price cuts mean more subscribers
Joosub said that in the South African business, a sharp drop in data prices, including out-of-bundle rates, resulted in an increase in traffic.
1.9 million more data customers connect to the Vodacom network, a 9.7% increase to 21.9 million, he added.
“While it is still early days, the trend of increased data usage has continued into the current financial year following reductions in 30-day data bundle tariffs of up to 40% from 1 April 2020 and the launch of our ConnectU platform, which provides easy access to numerous zero-rated essential service websites,” said Joosub.
Financial services have also performed well in South Africa, and revenue from the segment increased by 21.5% to R2 billion.
This was thanks to products like Airtime Advance, insurance, and VodaPay services.
“Our digital services business has also produced solid growth, contributing R1.5 billion in revenues on the back of increasing purchases of our video-on-demand offering and our music, sports, gaming and other video services.”
This comes despite “deteriorating economic pressures” in the country, said Joosub.
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