The South African government, which is the majority shareholder in telecommunications firm Telkom, has earned over R500 million after the JSE-listed company resumed dividend payouts.
The company today published its annual financial results and ordinary and special dividend declaration for the year ended 31 March (FY2025).
Telkom delivered a strong set of results for its continuing operations, marked by robust growth across key financial metrics.
Group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation surged by 25.1% to R11.8 billion, while group revenue rose by 3.3% to R43.9 billion.
With the stellar performance, the group reinstated its dividend, signalling a renewed focus on delivering value to shareholders.
It will return a total dividend of R1.3 billion, which includes an ordinary cash dividend of R833 million (163c per share) and a special dividend of R500 million (98c per share) from the completed disposal of the Swiftnet masts and towers business, resulting in 261c per share being returned to Telkom shareholders.
The government directly holds a 40.5% stake in Telkom, with a further 15.3% shareholding through the Public Investment Corporation.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies has congratulated Telkom for its "phenomenal" annual financial results.
According to the department, for its shareholding, the government of South Africa will receive in excess of half a billion rand (R540 million).
It notes this windfall will come in handy for the strained national fiscus.
“This is great news and worthy to be celebrated. The fact that this great result is underpinned by, among others, the growth of the company’s mobile subscribers that surpassed the 21 million mark, confirms our long-held view that the ICT sector is key to economic growth,” says Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani, director-general of the department.
“I congratulate my colleague, Serame Taukobong, the group CEO of Telkom, for the successful execution of his ambitious strategy towards the vision of making Telkom the backbone of South Africa’s digital future.”
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