South Africa\u2019s largest fibre network operator, Vumatel, only has 13% market share among low-income households, with several new challengers vying for a slice of the township fibre business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, of the 9.7 million urban households in South Africa earning less than R5,000 per month, only 200,000 homes have been covered with fibre, making it the largest remaining \u201cgreen field\u201d opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is according to Dietlof Mare, the CEO of Vumatel parent company Maziv, who provided an update on the company\u2019s performance and plans during Remgro\u2019s annual results presentation on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mare explained that they have segmented South Africa\u2019s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) market into three categories based on average monthly income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are served by three different Vumatel products designed to serve those markets: Core, Reach, and Key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Vuma Core market was the first targeted for mass FTTH rollouts in South Africa and represents around 2.2 million households earning over R30,000 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mare said this market is mature, with nearly all homes in this market segment covered. It is also 34% overbuilt, meaning that over a third of households can choose between multiple fibre providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Vumatel\u2019s estimates, it has 41% market share among higher-income households in South Africa through its Vuma Core product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the estimated 4.8 million households that earn between R5,000 and R30,000 per month, Vumatel has a 55% market share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mare said that this market, which is served by their Vuma Reach product, was their current growth engine, with 59% of the addressable market already covered and 10% overbuilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next market Vumatel and several other fibre network operators have set their sights on is densely populated urban areas, comprising 9.7 million households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several new upstart fibre network operators, including Zing Fibre (formerly eKasi Fibre), Wire-Wire, Ilitha Telecoms, and Fibertime, have targeted this market segment with daily prepaid products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between them, they have covered over 200,000 low-income households. Vuma Key accounts for roughly 30,000 of the homes covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The table below summarises Vumatel\u2019s net additions to coverage and subscribers during its last financial year for its Vuma Core, Reach, and Key market segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mare said a targeted build strategy allowed them to deliver fibre to 36,647 new homes by 31 March 2025. This was much slower than they wanted, as Vumatel has reached the limits of its balance sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was why Remgro looked for an outside investor to buy a stake in Maziv years ago, eventually finding a willing buyer with deep enough pockets in Vodacom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, a proposed transaction that would see Vodacom acquire a 30% stake in Maziv took nearly four years to obtain approval from South Africa\u2019s competition authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This had a chilling effect on fibre deployments in South Africa, as several major fibre network operators took a wait-and-see approach, happy to sweat their assets while Vumatel dialled back its capital expenditure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a recent interview with MyBroadband, Mare said that they saw fibre rollouts plummet from 400,000 new homes per quarter to under 80,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mare said Vumatel focused on driving uptake while waiting for the Vodacom transaction. This year, Vumatel added 133,949 active subscribers, increasing its uptake ratio to 42%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Vodacom\u2019s acquisition of a minority stake in Maziv has now been approved by South Africa\u2019s anti-monopoly watchdogs, with conditions, it must still obtain final approval from sector regulator Icasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mare said they are hoping for a favourable outcome, with a target implementation date set for 1 November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the new terms of the deal, Vodacom will contribute a minimum of R6.1 billion in cash and its own residential and metro fibre assets worth R4.9 billion. It also has the option to increase its stake to 34.95%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several upstart fibre network operators are challenging Vumatel for dominance in a previously untouched market segment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":607894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28470],"tags":[4462,76826,91509,89992,81711,41,25299,98783,101574],"class_list":["post-611894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fibre","tag-dietlof-mare","tag-ekasi-fibre","tag-fibertime","tag-illitha-telecommunications","tag-maziv","tag-vodacom","tag-vumatel","tag-wire-wire","tag-zing-fibre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612064,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611894\/revisions\/612064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Metric<\/th> 31 March 2025<\/th> 31 March 2024<\/th> % change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Vuma CORE<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Homes passed<\/td> 906,427<\/td> 906,315<\/td> 0%<\/td><\/tr> Subscribers<\/td> 408,095<\/td> 392,380<\/td> 4%<\/td><\/tr> Uptake<\/td> 45.0%<\/td> 43.3%<\/td> 2%<\/td><\/tr> Vuma REACH<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Homes passed<\/td> 1,103,794<\/td> 1,076,673<\/td> 3%<\/td><\/tr> Subscribers<\/td> 443,022<\/td> 335,971<\/td> 32%<\/td><\/tr> Uptake<\/td> 40.1%<\/td> 31.2%<\/td> 9%<\/td><\/tr> Vuma KEY<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Homes passed<\/td> 30,010<\/td> 20,596<\/td> 46%<\/td><\/tr> Subscribers<\/td> 13,091<\/td> 1,908<\/td> 586%<\/td><\/tr> Uptake<\/td> 43.6%<\/td> 9.2%<\/td> 34%<\/td><\/tr> Vumatel total customer base<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Homes passed<\/td> 2,040,231<\/td> 2,003,584<\/td> 1.8%<\/td><\/tr> Subscribers<\/td> 864,208<\/td> 730,259<\/td> 18%<\/td><\/tr> Uptake<\/td> 42.4%<\/td> 36.4%<\/td> 6%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Accelerating fibre rollouts in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n