Telkom Mobile has increased its subscriber base by 7.8% to 18.3 million customers in the year to end-March 2023, Telkom announced on Tuesday.
The mobile service revenue growth of 1.8% was supported by the growth in subscribers.
“The post-paid strategy paid off as the post-paid base grew by 11.0% to reach the 3 million customers. The pre-paid base grew by 7.2% to 15.3 million,” said Telkom.
“We extended our network footprint, using the newly acquired spectrum to enhance LTE coverage and launch 5G services,” says Serame Taukobong, Telkom CEO, said.
“This benefited the mobile broadband subscriber base, which grew 9.2% to 11.6 million currently, 63.7% of our total mobile base uses wireless broadband.
“We expect Telkom Mobile to continue growing its customer base in line with the industry.”
Also read: Telkom’s Full Year Earnings Plunge More Than 76%
Inflationary pressures and increased operational costs plunged South Africa’s Telkom full year headline earnings per share (HEPS) by 76.6% to fell to 134.6 cents from 575.3 cents in the previous year.
The company also said HEPS – South Africa’s main profit gauge – was impacted by lower EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).
“This was due to a 19.8% decline in EBITDA and a 9.5% increase in depreciation, amortisation, impairments and write-offs*, partially offset by a lower tax expense compared to the prior year,” said Telkom.
The company said it was also attributable to the impact of accelerated loadshedding and a 25.5% increase in cost of handset and equipment – higher mobile handset sales of 14.8% and increase in IT hardware and software revenue of 65.8%. “This excludes a R1 065 million provision for costs associated with the restructuring initiated in the last quarter of the financial year.
