Vodacom has released its interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2020, revealing strong growth across its local operations. This included its fibre division, with Vodacom accelerating its fibre roll-out over the past six months to more than double its total number of homes and businesses it had previously passed.
“We accelerated our fibre roll-out in the six-month period, more than doubling the total number of homes and businesses connected to 95,258,” Vodacom said. “Our owned fibre passed 128,213 homes and businesses as of 30 September 2020.”
Vodacom Business fixed-line revenue grew by 11.4%, excluding wholesale transit, which the company said was supported by strong growth in cloud and hosting and connectivity revenue.
Vodacom’s revenue was up 7.8% to R47.8 billion while operating profit increased 12.3% to R14.5 billion. The company added 4.1 million customers which means it now serves a combined 120 million customers across all its operations.
Data usage and mobile growth
Following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, data usage on Vodacom’s network grew significantly. Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub revealed that data usage surged 86% in South Africa as connectivity demands changed with a need to work, entertain and educate from home.
“South Africa reported strong service revenue growth of 7.1% (1Q: +6.4%, 2Q: +7.7%) despite sharp mobile data price cuts in the period. We captured increased demand for connectivity and financial services as customers continued to work, entertain and educate from home.”
To cope with the increased demand for data, Vodacom increased its network infrastructure spend over the six-month period to R5.0 billion in South Africa. The company also added 3.4 million mobile customers quarter-on-quarter to reach 36.7 million.
ARPU increased by 20.8% to R64, which the company said was supported by increased usage and the reduction in the average customer base over the period.
