Photo by: Bloomberg
Telecommunications group Telkom on Friday said it had posted a 1.7% uptick in net revenue for the three months to June 30, on the back of a strong performance by mobile on data revenue and higher fixed-line subscription revenue.
Mobile net revenue for the first three months of the year increased by 68.5% to around R350-million, with active mobile subscribers having increased by 11.7% to 2.1-million with a blended average revenue per user (Arpu) of R82.80.
Telkom Mobile narrowed its loss by 87.9% to R30-million for the first quarter of the 2016 financial year, with the company confident of pushing the unit into the black before year-end.
Telkom attributed the increase to a 68.7% surge in mobile data revenue, an increase in revenue-generating subscribers and the higher Arpu.
Post-paid customers grew by 61.9%, while prepaid customers decreased by 1.3%, mostly owing to a clean-up of the revenue-generating subscriber base.
However, the JSE-listed company noted the continuing decline in fixed-line voice use and leased line revenues.
Revenue from the group’s enterprise unit remained largely flat, while the consumer and wholesale businesses recorded low single-digit growth of 2.7% and 2.8% respectively.
Fixed-line voice and interconnection revenue was down R320-million, or 15.2%, quarter-on-quarter, while fixed-line voice use revenue declined by 13.7% quarter-on-quarter.
Interconnection revenues also fell by 22.7% on the back of lower volumes on mobile international outgoing traffic with a corresponding decrease in payments to international operators.
Fixed-line data revenue contracted by 2%, or R60-million, during the period under review.