In a newly published market update, Telkom has shown very strong growth in mobile customers in the nine month period to December 2020. The group’s revenue grew 0.9 percent year-on-year to R32.4 billion, which translated into net earnings (EBITDA) of R8.6 billion, or an 8.5 percent increase. This was mostly driven by an increase of 40.7 percent in mobile service revenue.
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Active subscribers increased to 14.9 million, which is 26 percent growth in a nine month period. According to Telkom, the post-paid market remains challenging in terms of new connections due to consumers being under pressure.
“The prepaid market remains the driver of new connections, prepaid customers grew by 30.8% to 12.3 million,” Telkom said.
Mobile data revenue was a major winner, increasing by 46 percent to R9.05 billion. This comes as a result of strong growth in mobile traffic (64 percent) and mobile broadband customers (27 percent). It increased its network infrastructure to facilitate this growth, increasing to 6,135 sites.
Group chief executive officer Sipho Maseko, said: “Telkom’s broadband led strategy and the decision to invest in infrastructure ahead of demand enabled us to meet the surge in demand for broadband services.”
“These results also reflect the success of our financial strategic objectives which include building financial resilience through sustainable cost management, cash preservation and disciplined capital allocation as we weather the impact of Covid-19 in our businesses.”
“While we saw an increased need for data in the period, fixed voice usage continued to decline, therefore Openserve performance remains under pressure. The investment in the network has enabled it to carry increased traffic of 28% across its fixed line network,” it said.
“Whilst we were faced with supply chain challenges resulting from international lockdown in the third quarter, we have continued to drive the expansion of our fibre footprint as evidenced by more than 25,000 new homes passed with fibre in the period,” it concluded.
