This archive report was first published on 11 May 2020.
On May 11, 2020, Vodacom Group, a South African mobile operator, announced an 8.9 per cent rise in annual earnings. The company attributed this growth to strong customer expansion and increased data demand.
Group Chief Executive Shameel Joosub stated, “The past year has been characterised by strong customer growth - we now connect 116 million customers across the group, including Safaricom – and the benefits of prudent portfolio diversification.”
Despite the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vodacom's South African operations showed resilience, with service revenue rising 2.3 per cent in the year ended March 31. This growth was driven by a 21.5 per cent jump in financial service revenue and a 6.7 per cent rise in enterprise service revenue.
Joosub expressed confidence in the company's ability to adapt to the changing market, saying, “The increase in the drivers of data growth gives us confidence that we will continue to see elasticity to compensate for the pricing transformation initiatives agreed with the Competition Commission and implemented from 1 April 2020.”
Outside of South Africa, Vodacom's international operations continued to show strong growth, with an additional 4 million customers and increased demand for data and financial services under mobile money platform M-Pesa contributing to a 12.5 per cent increase in service revenue.
As a result, group revenue rose by 4.8 per cent to 90.7 billion rand ($4.97 billion), with group service revenue up 5 per cent. Headline earnings per share (HEPS) increased to 945 cents from 868 cents a year earlier.
