In publishing its preliminary results for the year ending 31 March 2022, South Africa-based multinational mobile operator Vodacom Group noted that revenues rose 4.5% to ZAR102.7 billion (USD6.3 billion) from ZAR98.3 billion in FY21, as service revenue edged up 3.0% year-on-year to ZAR79.9 billion, supported by a resilient performance in South Africa. Group service revenue growth was underpinned by new services which include digital and financial, fixed and IoT, it said.
Consolidated EBITDA increased by just 1.5% y-o-y to ZAR39.9 billion from ZAR39.3 billion, adversely impacted by ‘a one-off lease contract separation that increased operating expenses and reduced right of use (ROU) depreciation and interest’. Whilst the lease contract separation ‘did not have a material impact on Group net profit’, which rose by 3.9% to ZAR17.7 billion, it did dilute Group EBITDA growth; EBITDA margin fell by 1.6pp to 38.8%. Additionally, the introduction of levies on mobile money transactions in Tanzania during July 2021 also negatively impacted Group EBITDA growth. Further, Vodacom Group noted that net profit from associates and joint ventures declined 12.7% to ZAR3.1 billion in the twelve months under review, ‘impacted by start-up costs related to Ethiopia and the foreign exchange translation headwinds’. Full year capital expenditure, meanwhile, reached ZAR14.6 billion, up 10.0% from ZAR13.3 billion in FY21.
In terms of key operational metrics, Vodacom added a net 5.9 million new subscriptions in the year under review, to service a combined 129.6 million subscriptions (FY21: 123.7 million) across the group at 31 March 2022, including Safaricom. It also noted that the popularity of its mobile financial services continues to grow, with 2.9 million net additions boosting the total 5.0% y-o-y to 60.6 million users.