Telkom’s modest mobile numbers

 ·14 Jun 2013
Telkom Mobile clean

Telkom on Friday (14 June) reported a 3.42% increase in active mobile subscribers to 1.54 million in South Africa (2012: 1.48 million) though the operator is earning less per each user.

Telkom launched its mobile arm in October 2010.

The telco saw a decrease of over 58,000 post-paid subscribers over the financial year to 375,938, while adding 118,879 pre-paid subscribers to 1.15 million.

The decrease in post-paid subscribers was due to a clean-up of debtors and an improvement to the credit vetting systems, the operator said.

Blended ARPU (average revenue per user) for the period dropped 17% to R61.47 from R74.16 in 2012.

ARPU from pre-paid increased 14.7% to R23.96 (2012: R20.89), while post-paid dropped almost 20% to R166.13 (2012: R206.83).

Comparably, MTN South Africa recorded a 15.4% rise in subscribers for the year ended December 2012, to 25.4 million. Blended ARPU declined by 9% to R122.

Vodacom meanwhile,  saw a 4.9% lift in subscribers to 30.3 million, increasing by 1.4 million customers in the year ended March 2012. Blended ARPU declined 17.8% to R129.

Mobile voice revenue decreased 7.6% and interconnection revenue decreased 25.5% as a result of the decrease in the number of post-paid subscribers, Telkom said.

Mobile data revenue increased 123.3% to R364 million (2012: R163 million) due to an increase in the number of data subscribers and the data deals and promotional products launched during the year, Telkom said.

Telkom Mobile’s share of all mobile operators’ year on year data revenue growth was 8.6%, the company reported.

Telkom has also boosted its LTE sites to 651 sites in South Africa.

Telkom results

Telkom on Friday (14 June) reported a 73.2% decline in headline earnings per share to 87.0 cents  in results for the year ended March 2013.

Group operating revenue decreased by 1.7% to R32.501 billion (2012: R33.079 billion).

The decrease is mainly due to lower fixed-line voice revenue, partially offset by an increase in mobile and data revenue, Telkom said.

Telkom’s ADSL subscriber base grew to 870,505 at the end of the reporting period, up 5.2% from 827,091 in March 2012; however the company continued to drop in fixed access lines, having lost 195,000 subscribers over the period to 3.8 million.

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