Vodacom Group’s international operations have fared less well than the key SA market as competitive pressures elsewhere in Africa take a toll.

“Our international businesses have struggled in the last 12 or 18 months,” says Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys. “Those markets have remained very competitive and there’s been a lot of pressure on pricing.”

That pressure is evident in the average revenue per user (Arpu) numbers, which have declined sharply over the past year. In Tanzania and Mozambique, Arpus have fallen to R21 and R22 respectively in the third quarter of 2010, from R31 and R34 in the year-ago quarter.

“There’s been a massive reduction in tariffs,” says Uys. “We have responded with much more attractive offers, which has resulted in a big jump in traffic: up 80% year on year.”

International subscribers have climbed to 15,5m, from 13,4m a year ago. Vodacom Group now has just shy of 40m customers in total.

Tanzania remains the group’s biggest market outside SA, with 8,4m customers, up 35% on a year ago.

Next is the troubled Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) operation, with 3,6m subscribers, down from 4,4m a year ago. Vodacom is still in dispute with its 49% shareholder in the DRC, Congolese Wireless Network (CWN), with the matter before international arbitration.

However, Uys says Vodacom and CWN are in talks about resolving their differences. “We’ve had several meetings to try to find a way forward,” he says.

“If all this fails, though, there’s still a possibility we will, in the long term, have to get out of the business.” — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral