Speaking at Telkom’s annual results presentation this morning, Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko said that it has been a difficult trading year for the company – with a lack of growth in the economy and regulatory uncertainty presenting unique challenges.
He added that fixed voice revenue has remained under pressure, which has not relented at all in the recent financial year.
Telkom saw overall revenue growth in the period however, driven by an impressive rise in mobile data revenue.
“Revenue growth has been largely underpinned by mobile growth, which has been more than stellar in terms of both subscriber and revenue growth,” Maseko said.
LTE vs ADSL
Maseko said that the company has continued to migrate its user base from legacy technologies like ADSL to new solutions such as LTE and fibre.
The company’s fixed-broadband subscriber base – which includes ADSL and FTTH customers – decreased by 13.8% to 847,650 over the period.
Mobile broadband subscribers have increased by 75.8% to 6,377,056 however, with 5,281,000 of those subscribers smartphone users.
Maseko added that Telkom’s fixed LTE customer base now represents more than its historical peak ADSL user base.
“About five to six years ago, we were largely exposed to legacy technology such as ADSL,” Maseko said.
“Over the last few years, we have had a primary focus on moving customers away from ADSL to newer technology.”
“The LTE subscriber base is growing. We now have over one million LTE users, which would have represented our ADSL user base at its peak.”
Telkom’s Unlimited Home broadband product has also proven popular among data-hungry customers, and more than 60% of Unlimited Home customers are now subscribed to uncapped products.
