Telkom has announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2023, showing steady progress in its strategy to position itself as the leading digital infrastructure company at the heart of South Africa’s digital future.
The results show improved financial performance, with group revenue up 2,5% to R21,8-billion and EBITDA up 1,7% to R5,025-billion. Headline earnings per share improved 46,7% to 195.0 cents and basic earnings per share were up 52,1% to 200.2 cents.
Free cash flow improved by 130% to R573-million excluding restructuring costs and improved 74,9% to negative R474-million, driven by significant working capital improvements.
Telkom also announced that it had entered exclusivity with a preferred bidder for the potential disposal of its towers subsidiary Swiftnet. This aligns with Telkom’s strategy to focus on its core connectivity infrastructure and in line with sector trends. As a result, Swiftnet which produced an EBITDA margin of 74,8% is now classified as “held for sale”.
Telkom Consumer showed 10,3% mobile data revenue increase, 14,6% EBITDA growth and 22,9% mobile data traffic growth, with fibre revenue growth of 31,2%.
Openserve has grown next generation revenue contribution to total revenue to 74,4% and showed EBITDA margin improvement of 2.5ppts to 31,8%. Openserve also maintained the highest connectivity rate in the market of 46,8%.
“These results show we are making steady progress executing our infrastructure-focused strategy under OneTelkom,” says Telkom Group CEO, Serame Taukobong. “The growth in our mobile and fixed data services demonstrates our investments in next generation technologies have also put us on the right path as data consumption continues to surge across our networks.
“Our strategy and performance continue to deliver industry-leading connectivity rates enabling more South Africans access to affordable, high-speed Internet,” Taukobong adds. “We are encouraged by the progress made in the Swiftnet transaction which, when concluded, will enable us to strengthen our balance sheet and continue to execute our strategic goals.
“Our performance shows we are focused on the right areas.”