Vodacom records US$1.3 billion profit for full-year, up 3%

Vodacom has reported its full-year financial results to end-March reflected a modest rise in revenues and profit.

Revenue was up by 8.3 per cent to ZAR62 billion (US$6 billion), while net profit rose by 3.3 per cent to ZAR13.7 billion. The company added seven million customers during the year, taking its total base to 57.5 million.

In South Africa, service revenue grew 0.3 per cent, an improvement on last year’s contraction.

Excluding lower mobile termination rates (MTRs), service revenue grew three per cent. The active customer base increased eight per cent to 31.5 million.

Service revenue from international operations grew by 23.4 per cent (18.4 per cent) and the active customer base increased 21.8 per cent to 26 million.

EBITDA grew by 55.4 per cent with margin expanding by six percentage points to 29.6 per cent. Data revenue more than doubled and the number of active data customers increased 86.4 per cent to 7.7 million, driven by data bundles.

Mobile financial services are also a strong growth driver with M-Pesa now contributing 18.8 per cent to service revenue in Tanzania.

Looking ahead, the company said that it will be increasing capital investment over the medium term to between 14 per cent and 17 per cent of Group revenue, although that it partially conditional on the outcome of MTR cuts in South Africa.