Vodacom on Monday (11 November) reported a 9.7% rise in group active customers to 53.8 million for the six months ended September 2013, with revenue also up 6.6%, driven by\u00a0data revenue growth of 29%.<\/p>\n
Vodacom pointed to net connections of 949,000 active customers\u00a0for South Africa and 2.3 million in its international operations for the six months period.<\/p>\n
It highlighted an 11.5% rise in operating profit for the six months ended 30 September 2013, from R9 billion in 2012.<\/p>\n
Revenue climbed 6.6% to R36.7 billion, from R34.4 billion in 2012, while headline earnings per share was up 10.9% to 439 cents\u00a0as a result of strong operating profit growth, Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
The group’s capital expenditure for the period was R4.850 billion, 2.9% higher than in the prior year.<\/p>\n
Vodacom announced an interim dividend per share of 395 cents.<\/p>\n
South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Revenue increased 6% to R30.1 billion driven by a 41.2% growth in equipment revenue from smartphone and tablet sales.<\/p>\n EBITDA grew 5.9% to R11.421 billion with a margin of 37.9%.<\/p>\n Active data customers grew 13.4% to 15.1 million, while service revenue growth trends stabilised in the period, an improvement following declines in prior quarters.<\/p>\n Data revenue increased 20.6% to R5.1 billion, contributing 21.5% (2012: 17.8%) to service revenue.<\/p>\n Focus on handset financing to drive smartphone penetration\u00a0has led to a 24% growth of these devices, with 6.6 million now active on Vodacom’s network.<\/p>\n The average monthly usage has also increased 78.9% to 220MB, Vodacom said.<\/p>\n Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO said: “In South Africa, we invested R3.1 billion in the network during the period and increased 3G coverage to 88.9% of the population.”<\/p>\n “When looking at changes to mobile termination rates, we are hopeful that the regulator will consider the crucial role that continued investment plays in facilitating further price reductions.”<\/p>\n “In our international operations, our customer base increased 22.4% to 23.7 million. Data revenues in these operations increased 100.6%. This was driven by a 41% increase in the number of active data customers.”<\/p>\n “Our International operations now account for 21.6% of group service revenue, increasing from 19% a year ago,” Joosub said.<\/p>\n “Driven by lower handset prices and reduced data costs, smartphone adoption is growing rapidly across all of our operations. In South Africa, average data usage per smartphone increased 79% and for the group, data traffic is more than 80% higher than a year ago.”<\/p>\n “To cater for continued growth, we plan to accelerate network investment and we are currently in the process of determining the investment allocation per country.\u201d<\/p>\n Vodacom and MTN\u2019s rude awakening<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Data revenue: MTN vs Vodacom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on Vodacom<\/h3>\n