The company said group revenue for the three months to the end of the year increased by 6% year-on-year to R15.425 million.
“This has been a positive quarter for Vodacom, featuring solid overall revenue growth and continued progress in building our data business,” said Vodacom chief executive officer, Pieter Uys.
Continued robust performance in South Africa offset revenue declines in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Revenue growth was positively affected by the Gateway acquisition (4.5 percentage points), offset by a negative impact from exchange rate translation (3.8 percentage points) and excise duties (0.5 percentage points).
Normalized Group revenue and service revenue increased by 5.8 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.
Gateway’s reported revenue was also impacted by currency translation but in US dollars remained flat quarter-on-quarter at approximately US$92 million.
Group mobile customers increased 7.1 percent (normalized 9.5%) from 31 December 2008 to 40.5 million at 31 December 2009.
During the quarter the Group customer base declined by 1.1 million, primarily as a result of the new SIM card registration law commonly known as RICA in South Africa and a change in the disconnection policy in the DRC, offset by growth in the other operations.
The South African mobile operations contributed 67.0% of normalized Group total mobile customers.
“Despite a challenging economic environment and the continued impact from RICA, our South African business posted a 7.5% increase in revenue. The actions we have taken in our international businesses have shown positive results in the form of improved market positioning”, ended Uys.
by Tintswalo Baloyi
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