Vodacom Group on Wednesday said it facilitated US$460-billion (R8.1-trillion) in transactions through its mobile money platforms in the past year, including in Kenya, underscoring just how important financial services has become to the JSE-listed telecommunications operator.
“The sustained growth of our financial services is particularly pleasing as this seeks to deepen financial inclusion through an increasing portfolio of services that already includes insurance, loans, savings, international money transfer and merchant services,” Vodacom said in a quarterly trading update for the period to end-June 2025.
“Group financial services revenue of R3.9-billion was supported by strong growth from our insurance business in South Africa, excellent growth in Egypt of 44.3% (55.1% in local currency) and a 17.4% (20.8% normalised) increase from international business on the back of an improved performance in Mozambique,” it said.
Vodacom reported year-on-year revenue growth for the latest quarter of 10.6% (12.7% on a normalised basis, with currency swings excluded) to R40-billion. Group service revenue increased 11.4% to R32.3-billion in the first quarter, supported by group financial services revenue growth accelerating to 18.1%.
“Encouraging trends from Vodacom Group’s first-quarter performance support the confidence we communicated in May this year, when we upgraded our financial targets, signalling that the organisation is poised for stronger growth in the medium term. These trends include strong revenue and service revenue growth in rand terms, a healthier performance trajectory by our international business, good growth in the contract segment and ‘beyond mobile’ services in South Africa, and another all-round excellent performance by Egypt,” said group CEO Shameel Joosub in a statement.
‘Clear strategic priority’
“Financial services remains a clear strategic priority for the group and is the largest component of ‘beyond mobile’ services. Including [Kenya’s] Safaricom, we now process $460-billion in mobile wallet transaction value annually, which underscores the impact and scale of this business. This is a 14.9% increase in transaction value over the past 12 months and showcases our clear fintech leadership position in Africa,” Joosub said.
The strong growth in financial services was also supported by good growth in Vodacom’s insurance business in South Africa.
Read: Vodacom CEO Joosub bags R71m in pay – but taxman will take a big cut
In South Africa, there was a strong performance in the contract (post-paid) segment and good growth in financial services, fibre and cloud services, offsetting a “marginal decline” in prepaid. Capital expenditure in South Africa is likely to accelerate to R12-billion by the financial year-end next March, Vodacom said. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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