Johannesburg - Vodacom chief financial officer Till Streichert has indicated that the company has begun negotiations to compensate the inventor of its Please Call Me service, Nkosana Makate.
Streichert told journalists during the company’s financial results presentation for the year to March at its headquarters in Johannesburg that the settlement with Makate could be reached soon.
Read: Vodacom raises growth forecasts
“We have started a process of negotiating with Makate to determine a reasonable compensation... We cannot prejudge the outcome of the negotiations,” Streichert said.
Makate, a former Vodacom employee, developed the Please Call Me product that enabled a cellphone user without airtime to send a message to another cellphone user asking them to call.
The Constitutional Court ordered that Vodacom commence negotiations in good faith with Makate to determine reasonable compensation.
It also ordered that in the event of parties failing to agree on the reasonable compensation that the matter should be submitted to chief executive Shameel Joosub to determine the amount.
Last week, the company overtook its arch-rival MTN Group, to become Africa’s biggest cellphone company by market value.
Vodacom has 61.3 million customers across South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lesotho.
Capex
Joosub said yesterday Vodacom planned to inject between 12 percent and 14 percent more towards capital expenditure over the next three years.
This as group expenditure for last year was R12. 8 billion, and focused on expanding 3G and LTE/4G data coverage, improving voice quality and data speeds. Joosub said that the company expected data demand to continue to grow strongly as smart devices became more accessible.
“We have proactively accelerated our investment in our networks over the past two years in order to capitalise on this future demand. To support growth over the long term, we will explore further options and opportunities to secure access to spectrum in all our markets,” Joosub added.
Vodacom declared a R4 a share dividend for the full year and basic earnings a share rose 2 percent to R8.81, while headline earnings rose 2.7 percent to R8.83 in the year under review. Vodacom’s overall service revenue rose by 7.4 percent to R66bn underpinned by improved voice and data revenue growth. In South Africa, its biggest market service revenue grew by 4.9 percent owing to improved mobile data and fixed-line services as well as improved voice revenue.
* With additional reporting by Bloomberg
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