Telkom has seen yet another strong rise in financial metrics for the quarter ending 31 December 2025, with the group beating its own guidance for its Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The disciplined execution of our data-led strategy delivered quality data revenue growth in the third quarter (ended 31 December 2025) and year-to-date,” said Group CEO Serame Taukobong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This demonstrates our strength as South Africa\u2019s digital backbone and our competitive edge of the OneTelkom approach. Our cost optimisation initiatives continued to yield results, as EBITDA margin expanded.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Group revenue for the quarter increased by 1.3%, with group data revenue growing by 9.6%. On a year-to-date basis, revenue increased by 2.7% <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The growth in data revenue led to its contribution improving to 61.6% (Q3 FY2025: 57.0%) of total Group revenue for the quarter and 60.0% year-to-date (YTD FY2025: 56.8%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fibre-related data revenue for the group rose by 8.9% to R2.1 billion and 11.1% to R6.2 billion year-to-date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telkom’s mobile data revenue grew by 12.9% in the quarter and 11.2% YTD, driven by strong growth in mobile data subscribers and traffic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the group’s revenue growth was offset by a decline in BCX’s revenue. BCX’s revenue declined by 9.3% in Q3 FY2026 and by 5.9% year-to-date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telkom said that the BCX revenue decline reflected continued challenging market conditions and revenue strain in Converged Communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, group EBITDA increased by 8.4% to R3.2 billion for the quarter, driven by cost optimisation initiatives, with the EBITDA margin sitting at 29.1%. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n EBITDA also grew 7.8% year-to-date to R9.3 billion, with an EBITDA margin of 27.9%<\/strong> (27.3% excluding property sales).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notably, the group’s EBITDA margin was above the upper end of the 25-27% guidance<\/strong>, with the group outperforming its own expectations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “This was due to the cost optimisation initiatives we continue to drive across our business units. Our total adjusted costs declined for the period and were flat YTD,” said Telkom <\/p>\n\n\n\n “We also experienced a decrease in impairment of receivables due to rigorous credit vetting in Consumer and the continuing proactive receivables management by BCX.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, the Group EBITDA and EBITDA margin have been adjusted to exclude the impact of the Telkom Retirement Fund derecognition loss of R618 million and restructuring costs of R160 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the period, the group invested R1.3 billion in capex, with a significant portion directed to its growth areas of mobile and fibre, as per its data-led strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The mobile business invested R676 million primarily in capacity expansion and base-station upgrades, adding 150 sites during the quarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group allocated R557 million to capex to expand and modernise the Openservice network, leading to the passing of 47,596 homes and the connection of 30,081 in the third quarter alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group also received R6 million in proceeds from the transfer of six properties during the quarter, bringing the YTD total to R214 million from 21 transfers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group has also announced a leadership change at BCX following the retirement of CEO Jonas Bogoshi, who Telkom said laid the foundation for the next phase of its strategic review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incoming leadership will now be responsible for accelerating the transformation initiatives that define its path forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hasnain Motlekar, who has been with the Telkom Group for over 28 years, with experience spanning both commercial and financial roles across, will take over as BCX CEO from 1 March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking ahead, revenue will receive focused attention, with the group encouraged by the solid performance of its data revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group will also maintain the focus on its cost optimisation efforts, with continued investment largely in mobile and fibre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite Openserve’s EBITDA margin remaining resilient at 34.4%, the group said that the fibre business will continue its network simplification and energy transformation initiatives to optimise costs in support of EBITDA margin enhancement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Telkom is partially state-owned, with the government owning 40.51%. Clients of the Public Investment Corporation, mainly government employees, also hold around 10% of the company. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Telkom’s latest financial update shows that the company has surpassed its own expectations for its EBITDA margin. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":834967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-851057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851057","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851057"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851064,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851057\/revisions\/851064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}R million<\/strong><\/th> Quarter ended 31 December 2025<\/strong><\/th> Quarter ended 31 December 2024<\/strong><\/th> Y-o-Y % change<\/strong><\/th> YTD ended 31 December 2025<\/strong><\/th> YTD ended 31 December 2024<\/strong><\/th> Y-o-Y % change<\/strong><\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Group revenue<\/td> 11 134<\/td> 10 995<\/td> 1.3%<\/td> 33 238<\/td> 32 377<\/td> 2.7%<\/td><\/tr> Group data revenue<\/td> 6 864<\/td> 6 265<\/td> 9.6%<\/td> 19 936<\/td> 18 375<\/td> 8.5%<\/td><\/tr> *Group EBITDA \u2013 adjusted<\/td> 3 237<\/td> 2 986<\/td> 8.4%<\/td> 9 260<\/td> 8 592<\/td> 7.8%<\/td><\/tr> *Group EBITDA margin \u2013 adjusted<\/td> 29.1%<\/td> 27.2%<\/td> 1.9 ppts<\/td> 27.9%<\/td> 26.5%<\/td> 1.4 ppts<\/td><\/tr> Capex<\/td> 1 304<\/td> 1 096<\/td> 19.0%<\/td> 4 174<\/td> 3 647<\/td> 14.5%<\/td><\/tr> Capex intensity<\/td> 11.7%<\/td> 10.0%<\/td> 1.7 ppts<\/td> 13%<\/td> 11.3%<\/td> 1.3 ppts<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div> New BCX CEO <\/h2>\n\n\n\n