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Vodacom results show voice and data on the rise, SMS declining

As part of its preliminary results for the financial year ending 31st March 2016, Vodacom revealed that its revenue from data, subscribers and enterprise business has climbed.

Locally, prepaid subscribers rose by around 7.6%, while the number of contract customers remained fixed at 4.9 million, the same figure Vodacom reported in the financial year ending 31st March 2015.

Despite that stagnation in its contract customer base, the operator has seen average revenue per user (ARPU) rise from R380 per user to R397 per user. Fiscally, this translates into mobile contract revenue worth R22.5 million rand.

The same cannot be said for prepaid customers, with the ARPU declining from R66 per user in 2015 to R63 per user this year.

Data use is on the rise with the network operator reporting that the number of active data users on its network had climbed to 18.7 million users; this means that 54.8% of Vodacom’s 34.1 million-user network in South Africa connects to the internet using cellular data.

This represents a growth of 13.3% year on year but a slight decline from the 19 million active subscribers reported at the end of December 2015.

Voice, however, is not dead and is actually on the rise according to the numbers. Last year 48.5 billion minutes worth of calls were made on Vodacom’s network; this year that number has climbed to 52.9 billion minutes.

Meanwhile, messaging (SMS) also declined with 4.3 billion messages sent in 2015, and only 3.7 billion sent during this last financial year.

Finally, selling you a new smartphone is big on Vodacom’s agenda with equipment revenue increasing 6.2% year-on-year to R11.9 million locally. What is interesting about this is that 25.7% of all devices sold are Vodacom-branded handsets.

Vodacom Group Chief Executive Officer, Shameel Joosub, used the report to address Vodacom’s plans moving forward. “Looking ahead, we will continue to explore spectrum opportunities. South Africa is falling behind on broadband rollout and access.

“Due to the country’s dependency on mobile data, it is key to secure access to spectrum to unlock this growth potential and fulfill the growing data demands of the population,” he said.

[Source – Vodacom]

 

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