Vodacom has big hopes for R13 billion deal
Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub believes the potential R13 billion acquisition of a large chunk of Vumatel-owner Maziv will expand the reach of fibre in South Africa.
In a trading statement, Joosub said that the group is encouraged by the Competition Commission no longer opposing its acquisition of a 30% stake in Maziv.
This came ahead of the Competition Appeal Court hearing yesterday, 22 July 2025.
“Should the transaction receive the requisite approval, I’m confident that it will enable us to accelerate fibre network expansion, help bridge the digital divide and contribute meaningfully to job creation in South Africa,” said Joosub.
The group recently announced that the terms of the R13 billion deal to acquire 30% Maziv have been restructured.
Vodacom plans to buy a 30% stake in the fibre assets of Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), which owns Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa (DFA).
Vodacom will acquire up to 40% of the ordinary shares of a newly created wholly owned subsidiary of CIVH called Maziv in the merger, established to facilitate the transaction.
Vodacom will add high-speed fibre-to-home, fibre-to-the-business, and business-to-business transmission access fibre network infrastructure valued at R4.9 billion for new shares in Maziv.
It will also subscribe for new shares in Maziv for R6.1 billion in cash and buy additional Maziv shares from CIVH, estimated to be R2.5 billion, enough to increase its shareholding to 30%.
The upadates on the deal comes hot of the heals of Vodacom seeing a large increase in its revenue during the first quarter of the financial year.
“Despite an uncertain global environment, our strategy to diversify our revenue growth by product and geography continues to pay dividends, evidenced by the 10.6% growth in revenue to R40.0 billion.”
The group’s service revenue increased by 11.4% to R32.3 billion in the first quarter, supported by group financial services revenue growth accelerating to 18.1%.
Egypt remained the group’s star performer, having grown service revenue at 43.8% in local currency, well above the inflation rate.
South Africa delivered a resilient 3.0% increase in service revenue, while Tanzania, DRC and Lesotho were the biggest contributors to the 12.4% growth in International business.
Service revenue from our beyond mobile services was a key growth driver and contributed R6.9 billion in the quarter, which equates to 21.4% of the Group and is well on track to reach our target contribution of 30% by 2030.
South African performance and outlook
South Africa’s results were supported by a strong performance in the contract segment and strong growth in financial services, fibre and cloud services, which offset the slight decline in its prepaid segment.
Data traffic grew 32.7%, supported by additional data allocations, good smart device growth, and significant network investments.
Having invested R1.6 billion over the quarter, Vodacom expects to invest around R12.0 billion in capital expenditure in the current financial year to enhance its customer experience further.
“Looking ahead, we’re focused on delivering on our Vision 2030 targets, which include growing our customer base to 260 million and our financial services customer base to 120 million,” said Joosub.
“Core to this strategy will be accelerating mobile and fixed connectivity, scaling handset financing and the roll-out of innovative digital and financial services in all our markets.”
The group also seeks to expand its partnerships across Africa to power Vodacom’s growth and drive infrastructure sharing to increase rural and fibre connectivity.
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