Vodacom Tanzania results for the first six months to September indicate growth in profits riding on Mpesa and data services revenue.
According to Hisham Hendi, Vodacom TZ CEO, Mpesa and data are the telco’s strategic growth pillars whose investments have paid off.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was up 9.3 percent to TSh147.0 Billion with net profit up 32.6 percent to TSh 51.4 billion.
Mpesa Numbers
M-Pesa revenue grew 15.9% to TSh182.0 billion, primarily from strong growth in our customer base adding 379,000 customers to reach 7.2 million customers in the first half of the year.
In addition, the period saw an increase in the uptake of mobile money products in Vodacom’s Mpesa ecosystem such as microloans, merchant payment system and interconnection with the banks and other operators.
Furthermore, a recently launched overdraft product known as ‘Songesha’ has garnered 1.9 million customers and has lent out TZS4.4 billion.
M-Pesa now contributes 34.4% of service revenue with more than 7.4 million transactions being processed during the first half of the year, up 43.1%.
Data revenues growth
Mobile data revenue grew 17.4% to TZS91.2 billion while data customers increased by 1.3% to 8.2 million.
According to Mr Hendi, there was a significant growth in 4G traffic reflecting strong demand for mobile data services.
Messaging revenue increased by 11.0% to TZS21.1 billion with the number of SMSs transmitted declining by 4.2% to 16.3 billion while the price per SMS increased by 15.9%.
In the half-year, Vodacom TZ has seen growth increase in customer market share to 32.9% and mobile money customer market share of 40.9%. Overall, Vodacom saw 764 000 net customer additions during the period.
($1 = 2,300.0000 Tanzanian shillings)