Telkom’s mobile business continues to grow, now has over 15 million subscribers

Telkom has published its year end 31 March 2021 financial results and, to no-one’s surprise, its mobile unit has continued to grow and has once again left its fixed-line business in the dust.

Not only that, but its mobile subscriber base has now grown to over 15 million subscribers strong.

Telkom’s take-home

These results remain consistent with Telkom’s anticipated shift in revenue mix as it recognises that, “the probability of new revenue streams exceed legacy”.

“Over the past five years, we have been investing in new revenue streams to evolve our business from a legacy to next-generation business. Today, next-generation revenue contribute more than 65% of Group revenue,” reports CEO Sipho Maseko.

Part of that “next-generation business” is the company’s mobile unit. The company’s mobile earnings have grown by 34.5%, and Maseko reports that Telkom’s, “…mobile business continued its growth trajectory as we surpassed 15 million subscribers during the year, carrying even more data traffic in 4G and 4,5G, as well as commencing our 5G rollout.”

More specifically, Telkom saw a 27.8% increase in mobile customers, resulting in a total of 15.3 million customers. Maseko says that directing the company’s focus to “data-led and fibre-enabled mobile networks” allowed it to keep up with the increased demand for data caused by more people working and studying from home. Under the pandemic, mobile broadband traffic jumped up by 53%, which is what earned the company a mobile service revenue of R17 billion.

This was enough to plug the hole left by the company’s 25.1% decline in fixed voice revenue. Telkom attributes this particular decline to the Covid-19 pandemic, as users shifted from fixed usage models to mobile connectivity ones to work from home.

Similarly, the pandemic also took a swipe at Telkom’s IT subsidiary, BCX, whose revenue dropped by 12.7%. The telecoms provider puts this down to customers and companies reducing their spending on IT due to the financial pressures of the pandemic.

From the looks of things we can expect to see similar reports throughout the year. Maseko says the company’s capital investment over the past half a decade has put it in a position to continue to evolve. Telkom will continue to hone in on “next-generation revenue streams”, it appears.