Telkom Openserve cuts fibre capex

Telkom published its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2025 on Tuesday, revealing that it has further reduced its capital expenditure (capex), including cutting fibre investments by R203 million.

This represents a 12.7% reduction from Telkom’s R1.59 billion fibre capex last year, to R1.39 billion.

It also slashed capex in IT solutions, digital platforms and innovation, and property development, allowing it to reallocate funds to other areas.

In particular, Telkom increased its mobile capex by R194 million — a 7.5% increase from almost R2.6 billion to R2.79 billion.

Telkom also increased its investments in its core network and network rehabilitation by over 20% each.

The capex for network rehabilitation/sustainment increased from R278 million to R335 million, whereas the capex for core network increased from R548 million to R708 million — a R160 million increase.

“Our funding framework supports growth areas and aims to improve our return on invested capital while maintaining a healthy balance sheet,” Telkom stated.

“Capex from total operations decreased by 0.8% to R6.09 billion with a capex-to-revenue ratio of 13.9%. Capex from continuing operations are in line with FY2024 with a capex-to-revenue ratio of 13.3.”

Telkom said the decrease in the capex-to-revenue ratio was driven by its focus on investing in high-demand areas, in line with its strategy to maintain its leadership in data.

“Supported by our investment focus, the mobile business expanded its footprint by 171 integrated sites to 7,909 sites,” it said.

“Openserve improved its fibre to the home connectivity rate by 1.9 ppts to 50.4%. The business unit continued to accelerate its fibre rollout, increasing homes passed by 13.3% and homes connected by 17.6% year on year.”

Telkom said it would continue expanding its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) footprint while connecting premises to maintain a high connectivity rate.

The table below summarises the changes in Telkom’s capital expenditure between March 2024 and March 2025.

Increasing fibre footprint

While Telkom reduced its fibre capex significantly in the past year, it continued to grow its footprint.

The number of homes passed by Openserve’s FTTH network increased by 13.3% from 1.2 million to almost 1.4 million.

It also increased its connectivity rate by growing the number of homes connected to its network by over 100,000.

Telkom reported that homes connected increased from 590,527 to 694,630 during the past year — a 17.6% increase.

It should be noted that homes connected is a measurement of any residence with an Openserve fibre drop installed. The connection need not be active for it to be counted.

The table below summarises Telkom Openserve’s FTTH operational data for the year ended 31 March 2025.