Vodacom, Safaricom hit 200 million subscribers
Vodacom Group’s subscriber base including Safaricom has now surpassed 200 million for the first time, having previously achieved 100 million customers in 2018.
The company revealed this while release its trading update for the quarter ended 31 December 2023.
During the third quarter the group says it celebrated several key milestones including Vodacom Mozambique’s 20th anniversary, the trialling of 5G in the DRC and the announcement of Project Kuiper, a strategic collaboration with Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite (LEO) communications initiative.
Boosted by its acquisition of Vodafone Egypt, where revenue growth continues to accelerate, the Group’s revenue increased 26.8% during the quarter to R38.9 billion. On a pro-forma basis, which includes Egypt as if it was owned from 1 April 2022, revenue growth was 9.6%. In Egypt, it notes that local currency revenue growth of 31.5% was underpinned by a strong performance from the Group’s mobile data, fixed and financial services, including a 40.7% improvement in data traffic.
In South Africa, Vodafone delivered satisfactory revenue growth of 4.0% considering the strong comparative as a result of heightened load-shedding in the prior year quarter.
‘’We remain Africa’s largest mobile money platform by transaction value processed, with a value of close to US$100 billion in the quarter. ‘’ Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO said
‘’Our super-app roll-out across the footprint remains a major focus for the Group. In South Africa, VodaPay reached 4.8 million registered users, with our summer campaign driving strong user engagement on the platform,’’ he added
Looking ahead, Shameel says the Group is fully alert to the financial constraints on customers caused by the high cost of living and remain committed to delivering innovations that enhance the value it delivers to customers to help alleviate cost of living pressures. ‘’We are also mindful of an evolving macro-economic environment across our footprint, including foreign exchange rate risk, and expect that our business model will continue to demonstrate its resilience.’’ he said.
