Vodacom rallies amid healthy dividend
Vodacom shares rallied on Monday (21 May) after the group announced impressive customer numbers and data demand for the year ended March 2012.
The group also improved its total dividend per share by 54.3% to 710 cents.
Shares in Vodacom climbed R3.10% or R3.10 to R103.10 on the JSE, bucking a difficult few sessions prior, amid investor concerns over its operation in Congo.
Vodacom Group CEO, Pieter Uys said that the operator is appealing a court decision in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the auction of its wireless unit on 3 June.
“We will not allow the 3rd of June to happen. They (the court) have set a date for the possible sale of the asset there. We still do not agree with the findings there,” he said.
On Monday, Vodacom reported a 9.4% rise in revenue to R66.93 billion for the year ended March 2012, from R61.197 billion before.
The group lifted operating profit to R16.617 billion, from R 13.696 billion in 2011, while headline earnings per share improved 8.1% to 709 cents.
The mobile operator said that customers increased 29.9% to 47.8 million adding 11.0 million.
Group service revenue was up 7.8% to R58.245 billion, while group EBITDA grew 10.5% to R22.763 billion.
Uys noted that demand for data services remains high in South Africa. Vodacom’s goal is to reach 25 million data customers by March 2014, driven by affordable smartphones.
Vodacom revealed a data revenue increase of 23.6% to R7.639 million, supported by a 35.4% increase in active data customers to 12.2 million.
The operator’s active data customers who purchased data bundles increased 60.4% year-on-year to 4.2 million, it said.
Smartphones remained the key driver of data revenue growth for Vodacom, with active smartphones on its network increasing by 55.4% adding over 1.8 million smartphones in the year to 5.1 million.
The average monthly smartphone data usage more than doubled to 92MB as Vodacom increased the number of smartphones with attached data bundles to 40.8% from 25.9% a year ago.
“Overall, the team delivered a very solid performance and the platforms for growth are well established. The 24% growth in group free cash flow supported a higher dividend of 710 cents and helped us deliver a 45% total shareholder return,” Uys said.
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