Vodacom has announced that group revenue increased 4,3% to R18,287-billion for the quarter ended 30 June.
Group service revenue increased 1,8% to R14,897-billion, up 5% excluding cuts in mobile termination rates (MTRs).
Group data revenue increased 23,2% to R3,584-billion, now 24,1% of service revenue.
Group active customers grew 15,6% to 59,6-million and active data customers grew 36,7% to 25,3-million
South Africa service revenue declined 2% due to MTR cuts, although there was a 2% increase excluding the impact of MTRs.
International service revenue was up 17,3% supported by strong customer growth and M-Pesa.
Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO comments: “In the past year we’ve added more than 8-million new customers, taking our active customer base to just shy of 60-million. Group revenue for the quarter was R18,3-billion, an increase of 4,3% over last year. Data and the international businesses have once again been the largest contributors to growth, and the entire business is seeing the benefit of our sustained investment programme.
“In South Africa we executed well operationally and grew our customer base by 11%, but revenue was impacted by the dramatic decrease in MTRs. We continued with our price transformation strategy, bringing down the overall effective price per minute by 25,3% to 68 cents and driving an increase in outgoing voice traffic of 26,1%.
“The elasticity effect was even more notable on data, with a 30,3% reduction in the average effective price per megabyte more than offset by a 70,1% increase in data traffic.
“Supporting this increase in traffic in South Africa, we added another 473 LTE sites in the quarter, an increase of more than 50%. On top of this we added another 293 3G sites, and 74,5% of our sites are now connected using our own self-provided high capacity transmission.
“This increase in capacity has the dual benefit of giving us the best possible platform from which to grow the South African business as well as the ability to reduce prices on a sustainable basis. The additional capacity means that we are able to maintain superior network performance even as traffic increases in response to lower prices.
“The international businesses performed well with service revenue increasing 17,3% and the customer base increasing 21,7%. The contribution of the international businesses to group service revenue increased to 23,4%. Data continues to be a key growth driver with the number of active data customers increasing 69,5%.
“Mobile data revenue including M-Pesa grew 51,1%. We now have more than 6,6-million M-Pesa customers. We increased the number of 3G sites in our international operations by more than 50%.”