The effective price per minute of a call on Vodacom’s network fell to 59c/minute in the six months ended 30 September 2013, a decline of 16,9% in the past year, the mobile operator said on Monday.

Despite this, prepaid average revenue per user rose by 1,4% to R74/month as a result of increased demand for data bundles and a 19,3% growth in minutes of use, offsetting the decline in prices.

Vodacom attributed the reduction in effective average call costs to its “pricing transformation programme”.

Demand for data has again underpinned Vodacom’s growth. The operator said on Monday that its 3G network now covers 88,9% of the population.

South African revenue climbed by 6% to R30,1bn, driven by a 41,2% surge in equipment revenue from smartphone and tablet sales. The number of active data customers rose by 13,4% to 15,1m.

“Service revenue growth trends stabilised in the period, an improvement following declines in prior quarters,” Vodacom said.

Excluding the impact of lower mobile termination rates, service revenue increased by 2,9%. “The improvement was driven by successful execution of our pricing transformation strategy, which resulted in data revenue growth of 20,6% and positive growth of both contract and prepaid customer revenue.”

Data revenue increased by 20,6% to R5,1bn, contributing 21,5% to service revenue compared to 17,8% in 2012. “We have further reduced pricing on all our bundles during this period, resulting in a 108,4% growth in the number of bundles sold,” Vodacom said. “The effective price per megabyte has reduced by 16,3%.”

The number of smartphones active on its network rose by 24% to 6,6m. Average monthly usage increased by 78,9% to 220MB/ device and active data customers increased by 13,4% to 15,1m.

Capital expenditure was R3,1bn, with the number of 3G sites growing to 6 574 at the end of September. The number of 4G towers grew to 727.

Nearly 70% of Vodacom’s base stations are now connected using its own transmission network.

In its international operations, Vodacom more than doubled data revenues on the back of a 41% growth in active data customers to 6,1m.