Vodacom (owned 65% by Vodafone) - revenues rose by 8.1% in Q2, with customer numbers up 20%

[cellular news] South Africa based Vodacom - which is 65% owned by Vodafone - has posted an 8.1 percent rise in its second-quarter revenues to R15.57 billion (US$2.25 billion). The company does not release quarterly profit figures.

The Group customer base was also up 20.4% to 45.4 million at the end of June having added 1.9 million net new customers during the quarter.

Pieter Uys, Vodacom Group CEO commented: " Strong data growth was again a major feature with Group data revenue increasing 37.6% and active data customers increasing 43.3% to 10.9 million. This helped support overall Group revenue growth of 8.1%."

"In South Africa, we added 1.2 million customers in the quarter, coupled with a 16.3% year on year increase in average minutes of use. This helped to offset a reduction in our average effective price per minute of 24.8%. We continued to drive investment in the network, adding 107 new 3G base stations in the quarter."

"I'm also pleased to say that for another successive quarter we saw an improvement from the International operations with service revenue growing 11.0% (23.7%*) and customers increasing 21.5%. "

Group service revenue increased 5.9% mainly due to customer growth of 20.4% and a 37.6% growth in data revenue offsetting the reduced mobile interconnect revenue and lower effective prices per minute. The active data customers increased 43.3% to 10.9 million.
Revenue grew faster than service revenue at 8.1% boosted by strong handset sales.

While data revenue is only 4.4% of service revenue in the International operations, it increased by 109.3% mainly due to strong growth in M-Pesa active customers in Tanzania.

Vodacom Posts 8.1% Rise in Quarterly Revenues