{"id":42211,"date":"2013-07-18T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T05:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=42211"},"modified":"2013-07-18T10:19:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T08:19:08","slug":"vodacom-sa-customers-flattening-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/42211\/vodacom-sa-customers-flattening-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom SA customers flattening out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom<\/a> on Thursday (18 July) reported a\u00a05.3% rise in active customers to 51.5 million, as international operations continued to expand their coverage.<\/p>\n

However, in South Africa the group noted that its customer numbers declined 2.3% year-on-year to 29.282 million, from 29.971 \u00a0million\u00a0in 2012.\u00a0On a quarterly basis, customer numbers improved 0.3% to 29.190 million.<\/p>\n

In a trading statement for the\u00a0quarter ended June 2013, Vodacom said that group revenue increased 3.0% to R17.536 billion. boosted by\u00a0the strong growth in equipment revenue in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Group service revenue was up 2.3% to R14.636 billion due to the 28.2% growth in data revenue and the 1.6% growth in voice\u00a0revenue, partially offset by the 14.6% decline in mobile incoming revenue.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, revenue increased 3.9% to R14.549 billion; however, service revenue decreased 0.2% to R11.678 billion, with a 23.5% decrease in mobile incoming revenue from MTR cuts offset by the\u00a0growth in mobile customer revenue of 2.5%.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom revenue<\/p><\/div>\n

The first quarter service revenue decline of 0.2% is an improvement from the 2.0%
\ndecline reported in the fourth quarter last year. This, Vodacom said, is primarily due to the better performance of voice revenue.<\/p>\n

ARPU declined 0.8%\u00a0year on year to R125 (vs. 9.3% decline in Q4 2013), impacted mainly by the MTR cut, the group said.<\/p>\n

Shameel Joosub<\/a>, Vodacom Group CEO said:\u00a0“Vodacom continues to perform well. We’ve seen a substantial increase in traffic as a direct result of executing on our commercial
\nstrategy and launching new products across all of our operations.”<\/p>\n

“As an example, by focusing on value offerings that allow people to\u00a0talk for longer, we’ve grown prepaid minutes of use by 21.0% in South Africa.”<\/p>\n

“Overall, the active customer base has increased 5.3% to 51.5 million and Group revenue from on-going operations, adjusted for\u00a0foreign exchange, increased 5.1%,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Shameel<\/a>

Shameel Joosub<\/p><\/div>\n

“Data and the International operations remain key parts of the growth story. Data revenue in South Africa increased 21.8% and now\u00a0accounts for 21.3% of service revenue, up from 17.5% a year ago.”<\/p>\n

“Continued network investment supported the increase in data traffic in South Africa, with 1.3 million additional smartphones active and using on average 75% more data per device than a year ago,” Joosub said.<\/p>\n

Joosub highlighted growth in equipment sales, primarily smartphones and tablets, which totalled R2.7 billion in the quarter.<\/p>\n

International operations added just under 3.3 million customers over the last twelve months, with service revenue increasing\u00a014.1%.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom active customers<\/p><\/div>\n

M-Pesa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mobile financial services also continue to grow, with active M-Pesa<\/a> customers up 44.9% to 5.2 million and revenue increasing by\u00a0102.8%.<\/p>\n

Vodacom said that in Tanzania 53.4% of the\u00a0customer base is actively using M-Pesa, the service now contributes 18.2% of service revenue, up from 12.3% a year ago. M-Pesa\u00a0generated an incremental ARPU of $2 in Tanzania in the quarter.<\/p>\n

“M-Pesa again performed well in Tanzania and has now been launched in Mozambique, DRC and Lesotho,”\u00a0Joosub said.<\/p>\n

At close of play on\u00a0Wednesday, shares in Vodacom gained R3.83 or 3.49% to R113.50, up 25% over the past year, but off its best of R129.88.<\/p>\n

More on Vodacom<\/h3>\n

Vodacom reveals business growth targets<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom hunts 30,000 SME clients<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom keen on acquisitions, but where?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom expects data growth spurt<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Market pressure slows Vodacom revenue<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom, MTN courting Neotel purchase?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom has reported a 5.3% rise in active customers to 51.5 million, as international operations continued to expand their coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,3403,27],"class_list":["post-42211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-shameel-joosub","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42211"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42223,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42211\/revisions\/42223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}