Vodacom has shrugged off the pressures of a maturing mobile market and falling wholesale call tariffs between networks to turn in a red-hot set of financial results in the 12 months to 31 March 2011, boosting headline earnings per share by 28,6% and combined dividend pay-outs for the full financial year by 61% to R6,8bn.
Helped by a lower effective tax rate, reduced capital expenditure, cost-containment measures and strong demand for mobile broadband, Vodacom, which is 65% held by the UK’s Vodafone, grew its net profit margin from 7,2% to 13% in the year.
Group free cash flow rose 22,4% to R8,8bn, with the customer base climbing by 9% to 43,5m. Revenue from data was up 35,5% to R6,4bn on total revenue of R61,2bn.
Gateway, Vodacom’s pan-African business communications company, was the only big dampener on the results, with the mobile group forced to write down another R1,5bn in impairments due to “difficult trading conditions”. In 2010, impairment losses at Gateway were R3,4bn.
Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys says steps taken to “simplify the organisation” and “speed up decision-making” have helped underpin the growth. He says the “combination of considerable investment in new base stations and taking charge of our own transmission has put us in an enviable position”. — Staff reporter, TechCentral
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