Sitholizwe Mdlalose. PHOTO | FILE
Dar es Salaam. Double-digit growth in mobile data income fueled a three percent increase in total revenue for Vodacom Tanzania’s half-year financials even as the telecoms firm remained in a loss.
Vodacom reported that, in the six months to September 30, 2021, the company’s revenue surged to Sh492.8 billion from the Sh478.31 billion reported in the same period in 2020.
The company showed that increased demand for data usage in the country played a key role in improving the data revenue and eventually the total services revenue.
According to the recently issued interim consolidated financial results for the period the company’s mobile data revenue increased to Sh107.46 billion, up from Sh87.37 billion in the same period in 2020.
The 23 percent increase was higher than any other sources of revenue such as M-Pesa which only surged by 1.1 percent. On the other hand, revenue from mobile voice, incoming and messaging both went down.
As a result, the services revenue segment of the company improved to Sh485 billion - up from Sh474.3 billion in 2020 - while its non-services revenue surged to Sh7.87 billion from Sh4 billion during the same period.
“We reported service revenue growth of 2.2 percent in the period, supported by increased mobile data usage,” said Vodacom’s managing director (MD), Mr Sitholizwe Mdlalose - adding that data customers currently constitute 51.7 percent of its total customer-base.
In the financial results the MD also stated that data usage per customer has increased reaching 1.6 gigabyte per customer per month.
Vodacom reported that slow growth of revenue from M-Pesa which still holds the largest share was largely attributed to the implementation of the levies on mobile money transfers which reduced the number of transactions.
Mr Mdlalose said that, “Following the implementation of the levies, mobile money transfers and withdrawal transaction volume declined by more than 40 percent and 25 percent respectively, compared to the transaction volume before levies were implemented.”
Vodacom’s financial statement also showed that the company suffered losses in the six months to September over increasing finance costs and taxation.
Company net losses expanded to Sh7.64 billion from Sh5 billion reported in 2020, as finance income dropped and tax expense increased by 177.9 percent to Sh18.9 billion.
The decrease in finance income was attributed to the decreased investment in government treasury bills due to payment of a special dividend in the second half of the previous financial year and lower interest rates received.
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