Vodacom’s Egypt subsidiary, Vodafone Egypt, continued to drive growth for the group, delivering service revenue of R36.1 billion and contributing 27.0% during the year ended 31 March. Service revenue increased 36.2% in local currency during the year.
Vodacom Group yesterday released its full-year results, reporting revenue of R167.7 billion, up 12.2%.
In Egypt, the mobile operator said fourth-quarter growth remained strong, although it moderated to 23.6% as the business lapped prior price increases.
The telco said growth during the quarter was supported by strong commercial momentum and continued traction from Vodafone Cash.
Vodafone Cash’s contribution to service revenue increased by 0.7 percentage points year-on-year to 8.7%.
The company said Egypt’s customer base grew 8.8% to 52.5 million, supported by a high Net Promoter Score.
Average revenue per user grew 28.9% during the year, which Vodacom Group said reflected strong commercial traction driven by big data analytics.
Data traffic increased 25.9%, supported by data customer growth of 9.3% to 34.4 million. Smartphones on the network increased 8.6%, with penetration reaching 82%.
Egypt continued to scale its beyond-mobile services during the year. In local currency, Vodafone Cash service revenue increased 48.2%, supported by customer growth of 28.5% to 14.7 million.
Financial services revenue reached R3.1 billion (EGP8.9 billion), accounting for 8.7% of service revenue. Egypt also posted growth in fixed connectivity and internet of things services.
Egypt contributed R18.6 billion to group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), representing 29.7% of the total. The reported EBITDA margin of 45.0% increased by 1.3 percentage points.
The company also noted that in the second half of the financial year, EBITDA was impacted by foreign exchange trading losses.
Operating profit growth reached 55.4% in local currency, supporting net income growth of 56.2%, Vodacom said.
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