Vodacom Group, a part of Vodafone, has posted service revenue of €1.182 million (+5.1 percent) in Q1 2018-19, showing its solid presence in Africa.

Vodacom has presence in African telecom markets such as South Africa, the DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.

The African operations are becoming a growth driver for Vodafone Group. For comparison, Vodafone’s European service revenue fell 1.3 percent to €6.964 billion, service revenue in AMAP decreased 6 percent to €2.223 billion and India service revenue declined 22.3 percent to €955 million.

Vodafone has presence in Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and other European telecom markets. But it is facing tough competition in Europe. Despite investment in networks, Vodafone is unable to grow its revenue in Europe.

On the other hand, Vodacom Group said the marginal growth in service revenue was chiefly supported by customer additions and data growth in South Africa, as well as demand for data and M-Pesa transactions in Vodacom’s International operations.

Vodacom said South Africa service revenue grew 4.9 percent due to strong customer base growth in pre-paid and an improved performance in Enterprise.

“The majority of our operations performed well, with momentum in Germany, underlying recovery in the UK and continued good growth in AMAP, all of which helped to offset increased competition in Italy and Spain,” Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said.

South Africa

Vodacom South Africa added 1.6 million pre-paid customers, taking pre-paid customer base to 46.4 million. Data revenue grew 9.4 percent and now represents 44 percent of total service revenue.

Vodacom said its pricing strategy has lowered the effective price per megabyte by 17 percent while driving a 32 percent increase in data bundle sales.

Vodacom South Africa has 20.2 million data customers including 8.1 million on 4G network, up 46 percent year-on-year.

2.6 percent dip in voice revenue is a concern for Vodacom, The African telecoms said its personalised voice bundle strategy through Just 4 You platform mitigated a 10 percent reduction in the effective rate per minute.

Vodacom’s International operations outside of South Africa, which represent 23 percent of Vodacom Group service revenue, grew 9.4 percent driven by strong growth in Mozambique and Lesotho, and sustained growth in the DRC and Tanzania.

Vodafone Group said total revenue fell 4.9 percent to €10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2018-19. Vodafone said services to businesses comprise 30 percent of service revenue. Vodafone achieved 12.6 percent growth in IoT revenue, primarily driven by 32 percent increase in connections.

Baburajan K