Openserve, the wholesale networks subsidiary of JSE-listed Telkom, has grown the number of homes passed with its own fibre broadband infrastructure to 1.1 million.
This, Telkom said in a quarterly financial update on Monday, means that as of end-June, Openserve has been able to pass the milestone of half a million homes connected with fibre.
The connectivity rate for Openserve fibre remains relatively high, too, at 46.5% — meaning that nearly half of homes passed with the company’s fibre have elected to sign up for its services.
Fixed-data next-generation revenue – in other words, revenue not tied to legacy copper networks, for example – rose by 10.6%, driven by growth in broadband. The next-gen network portfolio now contributes 73.7% to Openserve’s revenue.
“The increase in demand for connectivity and consumption continues to reflect on the fixed-data traffic increase of 13.3% to 512PB,” Telkom said. “However, the accelerated decline in total fixed voice revenue of 29% remains a challenge, and resulted in an overall revenue decline of 2.7% for the quarter to R3.1-billion.”
Load shedding also impacted Openserve, with diesel costs in the quarter reaching a staggering R88-million and negatively impacting Ebitda, a measure of operating profit, where the margin fell to 28%, a reduction of 1.9 percentage points from a year ago.
Read: Telkom reports surprisingly strong top-line growth
In March, Telkom said it had hired Bank of America to manage the sale of a stake in Openserve, a process that may elicit interest from Telkom rival MTN Group and others.
Read: Big speed boost for Openserve fibre customers
MTN last year previously engaged in early-stage talks to buy the entirety of Telkom, a deal that would have been complicated to get over the line. Those talks broke down, however, after Telkom engaged wireless broadband upstart Rain in separate negotiations. Those talks led nowhere. – © 2023 NewsCentral Media