South Africa put in a strong performance too in the face of difficult macroeconomic factors and costs from entry into Ethiopia
Vodacom reported a 35.5% increase in revenue for H1, reaching R72.8 billion (€3.64 billion), primarily driven by the acquisition of Vodafone Egypt. Vodafone handed its 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt to Vodacom last December and increased holding in Vodacom from 60.5% to 65.1%.
However, the South African-based Group saw an overall decline of 4.2% in its first half earnings, to the end of September. It blamed a combination of start-up costs in Ethiopia, higher interest rates and “the recognition of a deferred tax asset” from the previous tax year in Tanzania.
Egyptian lift
On the upside, despite tough macroeconomic conditions, Vodafone Egypt, generating service revenue of R14.3 billion which represents 24.1% of the group’s total. This was driven by strong growth in data revenues, customer engagement and content integration, according to Vodacom.
Vodafone Egypt ended H1 with 47 million customers, a 5.5% increase which was helped by its leading NPS in the country and its financial services revenue doubling to R804 million, which contributed 5.6% of Vodafone Egypt’s service revenue.
South Africa remains strong
Excluding Vodafone Egypt’s contribution, the group’s service revenue grew by 7.9%, or 4.1% on a normalised basis with strong results from South Africa where service revenue grew by 4% to R30.7 billion. New financial and digital services, fixed access and IoT increased 18.1%, adding R5.1 billion equivalent to 16.6% of South Africa’s service revenue.
Vodacom’s international business activities, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Tanzania, saw service revenue rise by 16.6% to R14.7 billion and a 22.3% increase in customers.
Data revenue grew 34.9% and M-Pesa’s revenue by 26.8%. However, Mozambique’s price transformation programme took some of the shine off these achievements.