Total revenue grew by 6.6% to R16.5 billion in the quarter, boosted by a 26.9% growth in equipment revenue, contributing 21.6% of\u00a0revenue from 18.1% a year ago.<\/p>\n
Service revenue improved marginally, by 0.6% to R12.6 billion, due to strong growth in data\u00a0and prepaid customer revenue, Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
Excluding the effect of lower mobile termination rates (MTRs) which led to a 24.1% decline in\u00a0interconnection revenue, service revenue grew by 3.4%.<\/p>\n
During the period, Vodacom said it added 600,000 smartphones with 7.2 million units now active on its network.<\/p>\n
The average\u00a0monthly data usage per smartphone grew by 83.5% to 254 MB per month, the group said.<\/p>\n
Prepaid mobile customer revenue increased by 6.8% to R5.444 billion. Active prepaid customers increased by 5.7%, minutes of use\u00a0grew by 21.5% and ARPU was flat at R80.<\/p>\n
“Our strategy of giving more value to customers has allowed us to achieve a 25.3% reduction\u00a0in the effective prepaid price per minute to 56 cents,” Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
Contract mobile customer revenue declined a fraction, by 0.1% to R5.336 billion. Active contract customers grew 1.7% to\u00a04.8 million, with ARPU declining 3.9% in the quarter to R393.<\/p>\n
Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO said: “We continue to gain ground commercially with a 12.3% increase in Group customers to 56.0 million and 3.4% underlying growth in group service revenue driven by data revenue growth of 40.7%.<\/p>\n
“This quarter highlights once again that our strategy of sustained network investment is key to allow us to grow our overall business\u00a0while still driving down the cost to communicate.”<\/p>\n
Internationally speaking, Joosub said: “Data revenue more than doubled with data traffic now three times higher than a\u00a0year ago. We are also achieving strong uptake of M-Pesa services. The international businesses continue to make an increasingly\u00a0significant contribution to the group.”<\/p>\n
![\"Shameel](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Shameel-Joosub.jpg\")
<\/a>Shameel Joosub<\/p><\/div>\n
International<\/strong><\/p>\n Service revenue grew 32.6% to R3.695 billion supported by 22.8% growth in active customers to 25.0 million mainly due to\u00a0the success of our street vendor channel, expanded network coverage and competitive bundled offers, Vodacom said.<\/p>\n Despite increased price competition in DRC and Mozambique and a\u00a0general market slowdown in Tanzania, voice revenue increased 18.1% from a 21.4% increase in outgoing traffic.<\/p>\n Data revenue grew 110.5% (including M-Pesa revenue) supported by 59.4% growth in active data customers to 7.5 million.<\/p>\n Vodacom said that 29.8% of\u00a0the active customer base currently use data, compared to 23.0% a year ago.<\/p>\n Active M-Pesa customers increased 24.5% to 5.8 million, representing 23.3% of the active customer base.<\/p>\n “In Tanzania, our most developed M-Pesa\u00a0market, M-Pesa revenue grew 59.0% to contribute 19.1% of service revenue. Additionally, 25% of total Vodacom Tanzania airtime is\u00a0now purchased using M-Pesa,” Vodacom said.<\/p>\n Vodacom Neotel deal close<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Expect poorer quality from Vodacom and MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on Vodacom<\/h3>\n