Vodacom is looking to invest in its network, armed with an R8 billion war chest from the previous year.
This was revealed by Vuyani Jarana, chief officer at Vodacom Business, this morning in Sandton, as he outlined the operator's strategy.
The company is looking to take on incumbents - Telkom and Neotel - especially in the converged services market.
According to Jarana, the company seeks to expand services in mobile, converged services, SMEs, machine-to-machine solutions, and cloud computing, and also grow services in Africa.
"If you look at the large enterprises, for converged services - fixed and mobile - the market value in SA is about R25 billion," he pointed out.
However, he noted, there are a lot of incumbents in that space and there are no 'green fields' segment mostly because of the economic slowdown the country is experiencing.
"So this is the reality - lots of incumbents and no green fields. So the question is how do you win in such a market when you are a challenger?
"Our main plan is on network capillarity; being able to deliver services quicker; and innovation. We are also starting to leverage on business-to-consumer (B2C) strategies to gain market share. B2C strategies tend to leverage the mobile platform that we have. So because of the mobile heritage, we will be able to innovate and, therefore, be able to come and box in the ring with the incumbents."
Network investment is key if Vodacom is to seriously challenge the incumbents, he noted. The company plans aggressive network rollout, handset transformation, customer-focused network improvement, fixed network capillarity expansion, network modernisation and resilience, as well as IT transformation.
To consolidate its position in the market, Jarana said Vodacom is looking to acquire one of the incumbents, Neotel. The Competition Commission has since recommended to the Competition Tribunal that it approve Vodacom's R7 billion acquisition of Neotel, but with stringent conditions.
In Vodacom's converged business, Jarana said the company is starting to make sure it takes a good position in the space where there are big incumbents, such as Telkom and Neotel. "We want to get into the space to ensure we deliver both fixed and mobile services."
Vodacom's enterprise business contributes 18% of the group's revenue and the company is looking to grow this to 30% in the next three years. "We have a clear plan to get there. Some of our key levers for success are around innovative products. We are also investing on the ground in fibre to ensure we win in that segment."
Jarana also noted Vodacom is looking to tap into the increasing number of multinational companies coming into Africa looking for a single ICT provider.
"From a Vodacom point of view, we have invested in infrastructure; we have got people in those areas who understand the geographies, culture, languages and the third-party networks. We want to enable the multinationals to invest confidently in the continent."
The strategy since 2012 has been to defend and grow Vodacom's mobile business, said Jarana. "Having over 54% market share in the enterprise mobile space, the next thing is to ensure we serve our customers better.
"SME is about scaling products that can be delivered to the market. Vodacom will largely service the SME market indirectly."
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