Vodacom on Thursday (19 July) reported a 29.2% rise in customers in a trading statement for the quarter ended June 2012,\u00a0hitting the 50 million mark.<\/p>\n
Group revenue improved\u00a09.3% to R17.02 billion, from R15.57 billion in 2011, but only up 0.9% on a quarterly basis. South African revenue was up 3.5% to R14 billion, and\u00a0International revenue advanced as much as 46.2% to R3.097 billion year on year.<\/p>\n
Group service revenue growth was up 8.7% to R14.74 billion.\u00a0South Africa’s service revenue grew 1.8% to R11.769 billion. Excluding the impact of the cuts in MTRs service revenue growth was \u00a04.6%, a 0.6 percentage point deterioration compared to the growth rate experienced in the previous quarter. This reflects the slowdown in data revenue growth, Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
Voice revenue growth remained stable compared to the previous quarter at 1.5%, the roup said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Customers increased 29.1% year on year to 31 million, adding two million customers during the quarter. “Our highly competitive value offers in the prepaid market saw customers increase 35.4% and stronger growth in voice traffic. Despite the 6.9% growth in Blended ARPU of R130 came down 20.7% as a result of a larger portion of lower activity customers \u00a0coupled with a reduction\u00a0in MTRs.<\/p>\n “We are delivering on our strategy of putting the internet in more people’s hands, with active data customers increasing 28.6% year on year to 12.4 million. Data bundle users increased 48.5% to 4.5 million,” the CEO said.<\/p>\n Customer growth and higher usage were somewhat offset by heightened mobile broadband competition, reducing Vodacom’s effective price per megabyte by 26.1%. The net effect was an increase in data revenue of 10.1%.<\/p>\n Smartphones remain a key growth driver with active smartphones increasing 40.9% year on year to 4.9 million\u00a0devices and usage almost doubling to approximately 120 megabytes per smartphone customer per month compared to a year ago, Uys said.<\/p>\n He pointed to further significant investments to improve the speed and coverage of Vodacom’s data networks, adding 109 3G base stations in the quarter. “We also continue to invest in increasing the capacity of our voice networks to support higher customer usage.”<\/p>\n \u201cOverall this was a good quarter with a particularly strong performance from our International operations supporting group service\u00a0revenue growth of 8.7%. The connectivity revolution is well underway with close to 16 million customers actively using data, up 43% from the prior year,” Uys said.<\/p>\n International<\/strong><\/p>\n Uys said he was\u00a0particularly pleased with the sustained high growth delivered by the International operations. “The primary driver has been solid\u00a0commercial execution, supported by a healthy macroeconomic environment. Service revenue from these businesses now accounts\u00a0for 21% of group service revenue, compared to 14.5% two years ago. Data demand in this segment is accelerating, with active data\u00a0customers increasing 152% and data revenue up 150%.\u201d<\/p>\n The International mobile operations sustained strong service revenue growth of 64.5% with good performance across all\u00a0markets.<\/p>\n Vodacom said that Tanzania maintained service revenue growth momentum, benefiting from its commercial actions and an improved pricing environment. Mozambique also experienced significant growth with more sites on air, smarter pricing and better distribution resulting in an overall increase in minutes of use.<\/p>\n Strong growth in customer numbers from wider distribution in the DRC has driven the solid growth in service revenue, the mobile operator said.<\/p>\n “Encouragingly, data revenue is showing significant growth in the International operations, up 150.0% in comparison to the prior year,” Uys said.<\/p>\n Year on year data customer growth accelerated to 151.9%, with 3.3 million customers now actively using data. Data growth was driven by a combination of increased take up of mobile internet services as well as increased M-Pesa usage in Tanzania.<\/p>\n “M-Pesa is progressing well in Tanzania, with active customers increasing 120.7% in to 3.6 million. M-Pesa revenue accounts for 70.8% of Tanzania’s overall data revenue and 12.3% of service revenue,” Uys said.<\/p>\n Earlier this month,\u00a0\u00a0Vodacom announced that Uys would step down in March 2013, and would be replaced by current head of Vodafone’s Spanish unit,\u00a0Shameel Joosub.<\/p>\n Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n Why Pieter Uys is leaving Vodacom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys to move on<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Good value Vodacom not without challenges<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom a good bet: analyst<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\ncontract customers we saw a reduction in contract voice traffic largely as a result of the continued reduction of out-of bundle usage,” said\u00a0Pieter Uys, Vodacom Group CEO.<\/p>\n