Vodafone Ghana records 32.5% growth in half year revenue
Vodafone Ghana has recorded 32.5% growth in half year service revenue, ending September,2011.
This is contained in the Vodafone Group's half year financial report dated November 8, 2011 posted on the group's website.
Vodafone Ghana posted some 27.1% growth in service revenue in the first quarter of the group's financial year ending June, 2011, so the half year results indicates an impressive improvement of 11.4 percentage point.
The report attribute Vodafone Ghana's performance to increase in subscriber base and the improved services on the back of the launch of 3.5G services in June.
Third quarter subscriber base report from the National Communication Authority (NCA) indicates Vodafone is fast closing in on second biggest operator in Ghana, Tigo.
Vodafone has come from 13% market share in 2009, when it entered the Ghanaian market, to 19.1% ending September, 2011, which is just 0.5% away from second place Tigo's 19.6%.
Vodafone Ghana has gained lots of customers on the back of Mobile Number Portability (MNP).
But in terms of service quality, Vodafone is among the five operators in Ghana fined hundreds of thousands of Ghana cedis each for sloppy service within the third quarter.
Meanwhile, there have been concerns about disparities between advertised tariffs and actual tariffs being charged by Vodafone, particular from customers registered on the various promotions such as Double Value, Supreme Value, Supreme Lite and others.
Meanwhile the Vodafone Group says its half year revenues rose by 4.1% to reach US$37.7 billion, but net profit fell by 11.5% to US$10.6 billion compared to US$12.09 billion a year ago.
The company attributed the drop in profits to a bigger tax bill, sharp fall in investment income and higher sales costs.
The company paid US$2.24 billion in tax on its profits within the period under review.
“Group EBITDA (earnings before investment, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was up 2.3% to US$12.02 billion, slightly higher than expectations. The EBITDA margin was down 0.6 percentage points year-on-year, as expected.
“The fall in the margin was primarily driven by our re-pricing in Spain and poor performance in Australia, partially offset by good cost control.
The report said mobile data revenue reached US$4.97 billion, representing 14% of Group service revenue.
It said the Group expects adjusted operating profit for the full year to be up to about US$18.9 billion, adding that the company also expects free cash flow to range between US$9.62 billion and US$10.42 billion, excluding the US$4.5 billion dividend due from Verizon Wireless in January 2012.
The report said service revenue in the Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific (AMAP) region, was up 8.4% with the period under review.
AMAP EBITDA was up 3.6%, with the EBITDA margin falling 1.0 percentage point.
The report noted that in Europe, service revenue was down 1.3% in first half of the year.
Europe EBITDA was flat year-on-year at US$8.98 billion, down one percentage point.
“This decline was almost entirely driven by a 6.1 percentage point margin decline in Spain as a result of price reductions and the macroeconomic environment,” the report said.
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless achieved organic service revenue growth of 7.1% in the first half of the year, and 6.4% in the second quarter of that half year.
Vodafone's share of profits from Verizon Wireless totaled £2.5 billion, up 11.1% year-on-year. Verizon Wireless' net debt fell from US$9.6 billion at 31 March 2011 to US$3.1 billion at 30 September 2011.
In July, Verizon Wireless announced its intention to pay a dividend of US$10 billion to its shareholders in January 2012. Vodafone's share of this dividend is US$4.5 billion.
This article was originally posted on Africa ICT & Telecom Network
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