{"id":646795,"date":"2026-05-12T11:01:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=646795"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:05:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:05:38","slug":"the-ceo-who-grew-his-companys-revenue-by-r119-9-billion-and-its-customer-base-by-190-million-subscribers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business-telecoms\/646795-the-ceo-who-grew-his-companys-revenue-by-r119-9-billion-and-its-customer-base-by-190-million-subscribers.html","title":{"rendered":"The CEO who grew his company\u2019s revenue by R119.9 billion and its customer base by 190 million subscribers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub is one of South Africa’s most successful business leaders, having significantly grown the telecoms giant since taking the reins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joosub has spent most of his professional career at Vodacom. He joined the mobile operator in 1994, a year after it was founded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He quickly rose through the ranks and became the managing director of Vodacom South Africa in 2005, a position he held until 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He served as Vodafone Spain’s CEO from 2011 to 2012 and returned to South Africa after being appointed Vodacom chief executive in September 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Joosub’s leadership, Vodacom launched several industry-firsts, including the country’s first commercial LTE network and first 5G mobile network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of South Africa, one of the company’s biggest successes over the past decade has been the growth of its mobile money service M-PESA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joosub has received numerous awards<\/a> for his achievements as chief executive, including the MyBroadband Telecoms CEO of the Year in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has also received an honorary Doctor of Philosophy<\/a> from the Central University of Technology in recognition of his contributions to business and telecommunications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He holds board positions at Vodacom Group, Safaricom, and several other Vodafone subsidiary boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joosub credited his rise at Vodacom to making the most of the opportunities that were afforded to him, which meant putting in hard work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His advice to ambitious individuals who want to move up the corporate ladder is to always exceed expectations. “If you are asked to do x \u2014 do x, y and z,” said Joosub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom’s growth under Shameel Joosub<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Over the last fourteen years, Vodacom has shown exceptional growth. This includes geographic expansion and the launch of new services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Joosub became Vodacom CEO in September 2012, Vodacom had 47.8 million customers, with 15.1 million active data subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company generated R66.929 in revenue in the 2012 financial year, underpinned by continued growth in voice and data revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2026 financial year, Vodacom generated R167.7 billion in revenue, an increase of R15.425 billion from the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also represents an increase of R119.9 billion over the fourteen years Joosub has been in charge of the telecommunications company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growth in subscribers was even more impressive. In the 2026 financial year, Vodacom added 26 million customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This growth was more than double the telecoms operator’s annual Vision 2030 target of 10 million customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This strong growth helped Vodacom to grow its customer base to 237.3 million across eight markets in which it operates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This scale is driving greater connectivity, productivity and financial inclusion,” Vodacom said in its latest financial results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This growth also saw Vodacom increase its Vision 2030 customer ambition to 275 million, significantly higher than its previous target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The higher subscriber target reflects Vodacom’s confidence that the growth opportunity in Africa remains far from fully realised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shameel Joosub photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub is one of South Africa\u2019s most successful business leaders, having significantly grown the telecoms giant since taking the reins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":646801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41906],"tags":[1109,1958,41],"class_list":["post-646795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-telecoms","tag-m-pesa","tag-shameel-joosub","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646795"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646795"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646935,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646795\/revisions\/646935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}