Vodacom Group reported revenue increased by 26.8% to ZAR8.9 billion (US$477 million) in Q3, fuelled by its acquisition of Vodafone Egypt, as well as hitting the 200 million customers milestone in the quarter, doubling its base since 2018.
In a trading update, Vodafone said the subscriber base milestone included Safaricom customers, and that 75 million out of the 200 million were using a financial service from the group. The operator facilitates US$1.1 billion a day in mobile money transaction value, and the value totalled close to US$100 billion in Q3.
Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub highlighted other milestones including the 20-year anniversary of Vodacom Mozambique, the trialling of 5G in the DRC and collaboration with Amazon’s LEO satellite connectivity company Project Kuiper.
The company is aiming for revenue from new services - financial and digital services, fixed and IoT - to contribute 25% to 30% “over the medium-term”. Revenues from these channels reached 20% for the first time in Q3 equating to ZAR6.2 billion.
Financial services remained the largest component of new services with its growth of 31% to ZAR3.4 billion in the quarter, largely due to the back scaling of new products and strong customer growth of 12%.
VodaPay recorded 4.8 million users due to a summer campaign driving user engagement on the platform, noted Joosub.
The executive added the company will focus on driving access to smartphones, financial services, healthcare and education to subscribers across its markets.