Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2004
Telkom has posted headline earnings of 536.9c a share for the six months to 30 September, a 59.8% increase from the 335.9c of the same period a year earlier.
A net profit of R4.38 billion represents a 65.8% increase from the R2.76 billion for the same period a year before.
Operating revenue rose from R20.04 billion to R21.52 billion. Fixed-line revenue accounted for R15.46 billion (2003: R15.13 billion) and mobile R6.07 billion (R4.9 billion).
Basic earnings per share rose from 298.5c to 503.7c.
The group maintained a high level of operating free cash flow of R3.9 billion. That allowed for the repayment of R2.3 billion debt and for a share repurchase costing R1.7 billion.
Telkom CEO Sizwe Nxasana says the group is positioning itself to supply a range of services and products following the recent announcement by communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri liberalising telecoms regulations.
In response to the resulting increase in competition, as well as competition from a second national operator, Telkom is also planning to keep its prices competitive, he says.
This morning the group filed its 2005 tariff adjustments with the Independent Communications Authority of SA, which propose an overall tariff increase of 0.2%.
International long-distance calls will be slashed by 28% and domestic long distance by 10%.
"People think an elephant can`t dance, but we are starting to show the early stages of an elephant dancing," Nxasana says.
However, local calls will rise by 5.5% and subscriptions by 6.3%. The price of data services will remain unchanged.
The group is also accelerating broadband adoption. At present, there are 36 716 ADSL customers in SA, but Nxasana says Telkom is targeting 250 000 customers by 2007. "And we believe we are going to reach that target quite comfortably," he adds.
Nxasana says that by next year it expects to have softswitching capability deployed in its national network to support voice over IP solutions to provide advanced call control, hosted IP telephony and IP PBX solutions.
The group is also working with Intel to begin trials early next year for next-generation WiMAX broadband wireless networks to SA.
The Telkom share was trading at R92.69 by lunchtime today, down 103c or 1.13% from Friday`s close.
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