Vodacom Posts Rising Profits and Revenues:

South Africa based Vodacom has posted a rise in its first half revenues and profits that were at the upper end of its earlier guidance.

The company said that revenues rose by 6.6 percent to R36.7 billion. Trends in South African service revenue have improved, from declines in previous quarters, to flat growth in this half (2.6% excluding MTR impact). Growth in data revenue of 20.6% and positive growth in prepaid segment revenue was offset by a 23.6% decline in interconnect revenue coupled with poor performance by the independent service providers.

Strong growth in customers and benefits from accelerated investment programme in Mozambique supported service revenue growth of 8.7% in the international operations. International operations now contribute 21.6% of service revenue up from 20.2% a year ago.

Net profit rose by 8.4 percent to R6.63 billion. Debt ended the period at R11.96 billion, a rise of 3.4 percent over the year. During the period the Group obtained two additional loans with a combined value of R4.5 billion from Vodafone, which owns 65% of the company to finance capital expenditure and working capital requirements and to repay maturing long term debt.

The group's active customers increased 9.7% to 53.8 million; with net connections of 949, 000 for South Africa and 2.3 million in the international operations for the six months period.