SA’s largest carrier Vodacom is readying to launch 5G services later this year.
This as the telco announced today it had added almost 500 000 new customers locally for the quarter ended 31 December 2019.
Vodacom says having been the first network to commercially launch 5G in Africa through Vodacom Lesotho, it expects to be able to launch 5G services in SA this year.
“This is possible thanks to a recent roaming agreement with Liquid Telecom, as 5G spectrum is largely unassigned in South Africa,” says Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO.
“Looking ahead, customers can expect to experience the benefit of our revised roaming deal with Rain, which will further expand our 4G capacity in an environment where delays in assigning available spectrum will constrain capacity for all networks.”
The announcement by Joosub comes as SA’s big mobile operators, such as Vodacom and MTN, have been unable to launch 5G services until more spectrum is licensed to them by communications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA.
In November last year, the telecoms regulator published the long-awaited information memorandum on the licensing process for the assignment of the International Mobile Telecommunications spectrum, or what is also referred to as high-demand spectrum.
Last month, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson predicted more service providers in the Middle East and Africa region will this year adopt 5G technology in their operations.
Turning to Vodacom’s overall performance for the period under review, Joosub says: “Our sustained investment programme, aimed at delivering a better experience for customers in each of the countries where we operate, continues to yield results.”
This, he notes, is reflected in the additional two million customers Vodacom connected during the quarter, “contributing to growth of 6.6% in revenue for the Vodacom Group. We now serve over 117 million customers across the group.”
According to Joosub, as expected, growth trends improved across a number of metrics in SA following the significant impacts over the past year from Vodacom’s ongoing pricing transformation strategy.
“These included substantial cuts in out-of-bundle tariffs and lower bundle prices, resulting in a circa 50% decline in effective data prices since March 2016.”
Vodacom added 484 000 customers in SA, which the telco says was supported by a successful summer campaign. In total, in its international operations Vodacom added 1.7 million customers during the period.
Vodacom SA revenue and service revenue growth rates improved to 5.9% and 4.6% respectively, “supported by increased data uptake as we continue to transform pricing, as well as improved performance from our summer campaign”.
Joosub says: “I am particularly pleased with the consistency in the performance of our international portfolio, which produced solid results on the back of strong demand for data and M-Pesa services, resulting in a 9% growth in service revenue.
“Our operations outside South Africa now contribute over 40% to group service revenue. In January, we had to disconnect 1.7 million customers in Tanzania, as a result of customer registration requirements, primarily due to the lack of government-approved identification documents. This will have an impact on our growth in Tanzania; however, we expect to reconnect many of these customers over the short- to medium-term once biometrically registered.”
Furthermore, Joosub says Vodacom remains committed to delivering on its pricing transformation strategy and has engaged constructively with relevant authorities, including the Competition Commission, to share the measures “we intend to introduce in due course to further reduce data prices”.
In December, the Competition Commission threw a curve ball to SA’s leading telcos, MTN and Vodacom, recommending they reduce their mobile data pricing by half.
This was after the competition watchdog released the Data Services Market Inquiry report, which was scathing to both leading carriers, saying they have to reduce data prices otherwise it will consider prosecution for exorbitant pricing.
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