Telkom said it lifted its mobile subscriber base by 22%, in a quarterly trading update for the third quarter ended December 2015.<\/p>\n
Active mobile subscribers grew to 2,565,793, with a blended ARPU of\u00a0 R90.26, the operator said.<\/p>\n
Telkom said that its mobile business continued to achieve good growth with services revenue up 37% and data revenue up 56% year on year.<\/p>\n
“Our initial expectation that the mobile business would break even by March 2016, has been tempered by the operating environment and cost pressures. We are however confident that we will maintain the current positive revenue growth witnessed in this part of our business.”<\/p>\n
Group net revenue for the three months ended December 2015, advanced 7% to R7.25 billion, while group operating expenses grew 13% R4.7 billion<\/p>\n
Group capital expenditure of R1.5 billion for the quarter was up 22%.<\/p>\n
Telkom said that fixed voice revenue of R3.6 billion, was down 5%, however, mobile data revenue of R417 million, was up 56%.<\/p>\n
The Competition Tribunal of South Africa approved a R2.6 billion merger deal between Business Connexion Group and Telkom, in the second half of last year.<\/p>\n
BCX employs approximately 6,700 people in Africa and generates revenue in excess of R6 billion per annum.<\/p>\n
Excluding BCX’s operations, Telkom said that group net revenue R6.76 billion was down 0.3%.<\/p>\n
“Excluding BCX, our operating expenses remained flat as we benefited from our multiyear
\ntransformation initiatives. We also made progress on the sale of non-core assets during the quarter.”<\/p>\n
Telkom said that the economic and operating environment has deteriorated driven by lower commodity prices and a weakening rand.<\/p>\n
It said that the outlook remains challenging on the back of lower growth expectations, higher interest rates and rising inflation. “Against this backdrop, we prioritised our capital expenditure programme to focus on the growth areas of fibre and LTE,” the group said.<\/p>\n
Features:<\/strong><\/p>\n Telkom said that it extended its debt maturity profile by raising a R1 billion term loan.<\/p>\n “We\u00a0 expect\u00a0 continued\u00a0 weakness\u00a0 in\u00a0 the\u00a0 economy\u00a0 and\u00a0 anticipate\u00a0 that\u00a0 our customers\u00a0 will migrate to cheaper packages or delay spending on new infrastructure.<\/p>\n “We will partner with our\u00a0 customers\u00a0 to\u00a0 contain\u00a0 costs as\u00a0 well take\u00a0 up any opportunities\u00a0 presented\u00a0 by\u00a0 the\u00a0 current environment to grow our business,” Telkom said.<\/p>\n Zuma\u2019s own goals cause Telkom to rejig its numbers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Telkom calls off Cell C acquisition talks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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