Vodacom subscriber base leaps

South Africa’s leading cellular network operator Vodacom, has seen its subscriber base leap to a massive 36 million customers in the continent, a senior official has said.

Announcing the company’s financial results for the half year ending 30 September 2008, Pieter Uys, chief executive officer of the Vodacom Group, said this represented a growth of more than 13 percent from the previous year.

“These provisional results demonstrate once again strong growth in Vodacom’s business. We now have almost 36 million customers which is a 13.1% increase on a year ago,” he said.

A detailed analysis of the Vodacom Group’s operations and indicators will be released on Monday.

Vodacom enjoys a lion’s share of the South African cellular network industry ahead of Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) and Cell C.

Meanwhile, Uys, said among other highlights of the year ending 30 September 2008, revenue increased by 14 percent to R26 billion while profit from operations increased by 12.5 percent R6.4 billion and cash generated from operations increased by 15.6 percent to R8 billion.

Vodacom is a Pan-African cellular communications company providing a GSM service to customers in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique.

It is the market leader in all of the countries where it currently operates, with the exception of Mozambique.

ITNewsAfrica.com, Johannesburg