Vodacom, one of South Africa’s leading network operators, recently released its annual results for the 2023/24 financial year. The report highlighted the company’s significant investments in its network infrastructure, as well as its impressive customer growth. Let’s take a closer look at the key findings.
During the period between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, Vodacom invested a total of R11.1 billion in its South African network. This investment aimed to support network resilience, leverage new spectrum assets, and enhance IT platforms.
Despite a slight decline of 0.5% compared to the previous year, Vodacom has maintained consistent network capital expenditure over the past three financial years. In 2022/23, the company invested R11.17 billion, and in the year before that, R11.15 billion.
Vodacom’s commitment to network resilience is evident in its significant spending on backup power solutions and running costs for its towers. This investment ensures that the network remains reliable and capable of meeting the growing demands of its customers.
Vodacom experienced remarkable growth in its customer base over the past twelve months. The company added 125,000 contract customers and 7.3 million prepaid users, bringing the total number of contract customers to 6.8 million and prepaid customers to 44.9 million.
This expansion is a testament to Vodacom’s strong market presence and its ability to cater to the diverse needs of its customers.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Lesufi With Vodacom Upgraded Reporting Devices Across The Province
Furthermore, Vodacom has made significant strides in its fixed services, including fiber. The company reported a substantial increase in data traffic on its network, which can be attributed to greater smartphone penetration and improved network availability.
Data traffic increased by 36.2%, and Vodacom’s data customer base reached 28.8 million. Additionally, the number of 4G and 5G devices on the network increased by 15.2% to 24.4 million.
Vodacom’s fixed service revenue also saw a significant increase of 18.4% over the period, driven by the successful adoption of fibre by its customers. The company reported that 190,000 homes and businesses were connected, while its own fibre passed almost 166,000 premises.
Vodacom’s annual results for the 2023/24 financial year revealed modest growth in service revenue and a slight decline in operational profit.
Overall revenue increased by 4.2% from R84.7 billion to R88.3 billion, while service revenue increased by 2.6% from R60 billion to R61.6 billion. However, operating profit declined by 3.6% to R20.1 billion from R20.8 billion.
The company attributed the decline in operational profit to higher depreciation and amortization expenses. Despite this, Vodacom’s revenue growth was supported by the introduction of new services, the consumer contract segment, and prepaid mobile data.
New services, such as financial and digital services, fixed services, and IoT, saw an 11.2% increase and contributed R10.2 billion, or 16.6% of South Africa’s service revenue. Additionally, mobile prepaid data growth of 11.6% was driven by network resilience and personalized offers based on big data.
