South Africa’s Vodacom Group has published its consolidated annual results for the twelve months ended 31 March 2017, reporting a 1.5% increase in revenues year-on-year to ZAR81.278 billion (USD1.62 billion) from ZAR80.077 billion reported in FY2015/16. The operator said that service revenues generated by its domestic unit increased by 5.6% on an annualised basis, aided by strong customer net additions of close to three million, while international operation’s service revenues declined by 5.6% y-o-y to ZAR16.775 billion impacted by currency volatility and customer registration processes. The company’s EBITDA increased in the period under review, to ZAR31.238 billion (up by 2.9% y-o-y), while net profit grew 1.7% to ZAR13.126 billion (ZAR12.910 billion in FY2015/16).
In operational terms, the group – which has operations in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho and Mozambique – closed out last year with more than 66.786 million subscribers, up 8.9% on an annualised basis. In its domestic market, Vodacom reported an 8.6% y-o-y increase in subscribers, with 37.131 million users on its books; 32.000 million of those were pre-paid users, with 19.549 million mobile data subscribers at that date (18.056 million in March 2016). The group also reported customer increases in Tanzania (12.653 million, up 2.2% y-o-y), DRC (10.388 million, up 21.8%), Mozambique (5.146 million, 6.6%) and Lesotho (1.468 million, up 4.9%).
Commenting on the results, Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO, said: ‘Our solid results this year show that we continue to make great progress against our strategic priorities with our performance driven in particular by strong customer growth in South Africa, where we added close to three million customers, largely contributing to a 5.6% increase in service revenue growth. This was offset by the impact of currency volatility and the anticipated effects of customer registrations and disconnections in our International operations, where service revenue declined by 5.6% (up 2.2%) … Looking ahead, we are fully alert to the changing regulatory and macroeconomic environments and have measures in place to ensure we have the agility to adapt to various relevant scenarios.’