JOHANNESBURG - VODACOM South Africa recorded a jump in year-on-year revenue during the December 2020 quarter as the high demand for airtime advance and funeral policies boosted its financial services business and customers took advantage of the newly launched loyalty programme.
Service revenue from South Africa operations was R14.3 billion, 5.4 percent higher than R13.5bn in 2019 on the strong demand for new services and connectivity, while revenue was R19.7bn up 8.5 percent from R18.1bn a year earlier.
Group service revenue jumped by 3.9 percent to R19.6bn from R18.8bn a year earlier. Group revenue surged by 6.4 percent to R25.1bn up from R23.6bn a year earlier.
Chief executive Shameel Joosub said the summer campaign coupled with the recently launched Voda Bucks loyalty programme service revenue boosted the group.
“We had 23 million customers opt into the campaign, which was underpinned by our newly launched loyalty programme, Voda Bucks,” Joosub said.
Joosub said Vodacom’s summer campaign recorded 271 million device “shakes”, or 5 million shakes per day, and stimulated strong customer engagement via instant rewards.
Vodacom revamped Voda Bucks, after ending its Talking Points rewards for prepaid customers at the end of July.
Voda Bucks can be used to buy fashion, food, electronics and appliances via the Voda Bucks store, which can be accessed on the Vodacom app.
The group said the financial services division now boasted 13.1 million people, representing a 23.8 percent increase from 2019.
Financial services also posted a 24.3 percent surge in revenue to R619 million underpinned by the airtime advance product, where R3.1bn airtime was advanced, marking an increase of 27.7 percent.
Other highlights included the 43.2 percent data traffic increase and the addition of 200 000 new data customers helping to reach 22.5 million customers.
Vodacom Business service revenue grew 6.1 percent to R3.9bn in the quarter, with corporate and university data demand moderating from the elevated levels recorded in the first six months of the financial year.
The group also recorded R2.7bn in capital investment, which was up 12.3 percent year-on-year as the government allocated additional spectrum during lockdown helping mobile operators to increase their network capacity and improve their average network performance.
“Temporary spectrum was allocated until the end of March 2021, aligning with the timing of the High Demand Spectrum auction, and has assisted us in supporting network capacity requirements,” Vodacom said.
Vodacom and MTN also launched 5G networks during the lockdown using the temporary spectrum.
Vodacom shares closed 0.92 percent higher at R125.51 on the JSE yesterday.
BUSINESS REPORT