JOHANNESBURG - Mobile company Vodacom said on Wednesday its group revenue rose 6.7 percent to R22.6 billion in the quarter ended December 2017.
Vodacom said it added 2.5 million active customers during the quarter; 1.6 million in South Africa and 0.9 million in its international operations. This saw it reach 73.6 million active customers across the group, up 13.0 percent year on year.
"Our strategy of sustained investment into our network and improving customer experience has delivered solid gains in customer numbers in South Africa, and driven growth in our International operations," Group CEO Shameel Joosub.
Vodacom said it continued to invest heavily into communication infrastructure in South Africa, both to increase the reach of its data and voice services and to service the growing demand for data.
"During this quarter, our capital expenditure of R2.3 billion was focused on maintaining our best network advantage, as well as enhancing our IT systems and deep learning machine capabilities," it said,
The company said its market leading network had now reached 77.6 percent 4G population coverage, while 3G covered 99.4 percent of the population.
On the regulatory front in South Africa, it would submit a detailed response to the department of telecommunications and postal services regarding its proposed amendments to the Electronic Communications Act.
"We remain of the opinion that a hybrid between what is currently in place and the proposed Wholesale Open Access Network addresses the government’s transformation mandate and will have a greater impact on driving down the cost to communicate for customers compared with the proposed amendments to the Electronic Communications Act," it said