Vodafone reports ‘robust’ revenue as it eyes bigger stake in Vodacom
Vodacom parent company, Vodafone, reported a 2.2% rise in organic service revenue for the quarter ended June 2017, to €10.28 billion, which beat analysts forecasts.
The operator noted that data traffic continued to grow rapidly in the quarter at 63% in absolute terms, adding that the growth in traffic during the quarter was equivalent to its total quarterly
data traffic just two years ago. “We now have 83.5 million 4G customers, including India and our joint ventures, across the 22 countries where we offer 4G, having added 8.8 million customers in the quarter,” Vodafone said.
Vodafone said it it is able to market high speed broadband services to 98 million households across Europe, an increase of 24 million households year-on-year.
Vittorio Colao, group chief executive, said: “We have made a good start to the year in Europe, where our commercial momentum remains robust, and growth accelerated across AMAP. Although competition in India remains intense, service revenues stabilised compared with the prior quarter. Our substantial investments in network leadership, an excellent customer experience and even greater ‘more-for-more’ propositions for customers are enabling us to monetise strong demand for mobile data.
“We are gaining profitable market share in broadband, and a growing proportion of our customers now take our fully converged offers. Our world-leading Internet of Things platform contributed to another quarter of solid growth in Enterprise. In addition, we are executing our ‘Fit for Growth’ cost efficiency programme in line with our plans. Overall, this performance gives us confidence in reiterating our outlook for the year.”
During the quarter Vodafone launched ‘Vodafone Pass’, an innovative new proposition which allows customers to buy passes to access free social, music and video applications without using up their data allowance. Vodafone Passes are now available in five markets, although not yet in South Africa.
Across emerging markets, Vodafone said that data adoption continues at a rapid pace. “In South Africa, the number of active data users increased by 6.2% to 19.2 million, and average usage per 4G device rose to 1.4 GB per month,” it said.
In May 2017, Vodafone announced that Vodafone Group would exchange a 35% indirect interest in Safaricom for 226.8 million new ordinary Vodacom shares, enabling the company to simplify the management of its sub- Saharan African holdings.
On 18 July 2017, Vodacom shareholders voted in favour of the transaction. “We expect the transaction to complete in early August, following which Vodafone’s ownership in Vodacom will increase from 65% to 70%,” Vodafone said.
Read: Vodacom adds 2.3 million SA customers as quarterly revenue soars
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