Telkom earnings up on mobile business
TELKOM tripled its after-tax profit to R1.8-billion and resumed paying interim dividends after 13 years, the company said in its interim results statement yesterday.
Interim revenue for the six months to end-September grew 20.6% to R20.2-billion.
Declines in Telkom’s fixed-line telephone business were offset by growth in its mobile division and the inclusion of information technology group BCX.
BCX’s contribution to the group’s revenue increased more than sevenfold, to R3.6-billion from R489-million in the matching period. BCX contributed 18% of Telkom’s interim revenue.
Telkom’s fastest growth came from mobile data. Its contribution grew 43.2% to R1-billion, while mobile voice revenue grew 30% to R520-million.
Meanwhile, Telkom’s traditional fixed-line business continued to shrink. Fixed-line usage revenue fell 9% to R2.8-billion and fixed-line subscription income slipped 1.1% to R4.16-billion.
The former owner of Vodacom managed to grow its mobile broadband subscribers by 44.5%, to 2.3 million customers.
“We now have 70.8% of our customer base using data at an average of 2.7GB per customer a month,” chief executive Sipho Maseko said.
Telkom’s “fibre to the home” service has grown to 144 512 homes and 850 gated communities, and it has 42 176 fibre connections to businesses. Telkom declared an interim dividend of R1.31. It has revised its dividend policy to pay out 60% of full-year headline earnings and 40% of interim headline earnings.