Cellular network provider Vodacom has paid its shareholders R1.6 billion in dividends after experiencing strong growth in the six months to 30 September.
The group`s total customer base grew by 40.6% to 13.5 million, with the South African customer base increasing from 8.5 million in September last year to 11.3 million this year.
Group revenue increased from R11.3 billion to R13.59 billion, while profit from operations rose from R2.45 billion to R2.54 billion.
A net profit of R1.43 billion compares with R1.37 billion a year earlier.
CEO Alan Knott-Craig says the majority of the growth in SA came from the prepaid market, although the contract market also experienced significant growth.
The number of prepaid customers increased by 33.5% to 9.7 million while the number of contract customers rose by 32% to 1.6 million.
The group recorded average revenue per user (ARPU) of R165, 7.8% down on the same period last year.
Knott-Craig says this is due to the continued dilution of ARPU caused by the higher proportion of new, lower ARPU prepaid connections.
Total traffic on the network, excluding national and international roaming traffic, increased by 20.4% to 7 billion minutes, mainly due to the rise in the number of customers.
Knott-Craig says the group has not abandoned the idea of operating in Nigeria. "We remain engaged with the Nigerian government and businessmen.
"The Nigerian government took very seriously our exit and took very seriously the reasons for our exit, and Nigeria now is not the same Nigeria as it was a year ago."
He says there has been "a clean-up" of the business environment there and the group will look at re-entering the country when the time is right.
Vodacom intends to continue to consolidate service providers as it does not believe that the service provider model is relevant to the prepaid market, which dominates in SA. Its own service provider company is to be integrated into its South African operation next year.
Next year will also see changes on the technology front. By December, the group is to roll-out the first part of its new 3G network - 470 base stations at a cost of R400 million. It also plans to invest a further R400 million each year over the next two years.
Knott-Craig says capital expenditure on GSM was about R13 billion. The costs of building a 3G network will not be as expensive as it will be rolled out on top of the existing network.
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