Vodacom has increased its customer base to 28.2 million customers across its networks operating in SA, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique, says 50% parent company Telkom.
This is a 9.5% increase in the three months since the end of September and is "a result of high gross customer connections of 4.5 million", it notes.
Vodacom's non-South African operations comprised 6.4 million customers, or 22.7% of the total customer base. Its local operations, which include Smartphone, saw the customer base increase by 7.8%.
The company now has 21.8 million local customers, of which 2.9 million are contract customers and 18.8 million are prepaid customers, reflecting increases of 6.7% and 8% respectively.
Ported gains
"To date, customers joining the Vodacom network together with customers leaving the Vodacom network, due to number portability, have totalled about 20 000. This is less than the number of new connections which Vodacom usually activates in any one day," Telkom told shareholders this morning.
"As far as contract customers are concerned, Vodacom has gained twice as many as it has lost through number portability, and as far as prepaid customers are concerned, it has lost more than it has gained." The company estimates a local market share of 58%, 1% down from September.
Spending more
Locally, Vodacom's blended average revenue per user (ARPU) has moved up 2.4%, to R127 from R124. This gain emanated from prepaid ARPU, which moved up 4.9%, to R64 from R61. Contract customers lost 0.8% in ARPU, moving down to R524 from R528. Community service telephones also lost ground, moving 5.6% down to R960 from R1 017.
Blended churn moved down 5.1% to 37.9% from 43%. Contract churn was 0.7 percentage points down from 10.3% to 11%. Prepaid churn was down 5.6% to 42.1% from 47.7%.
Vodacom's non-South African operations increased their total customer base by 15.7%, to 6.4 million customers. "Satisfactory customer growth was achieved in all of Vodacom's non-South African operations," says Telkom.
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