Vodacom cleans out its house, sheds more than 1 million clients on its records

Vodacom has announced that it has shed over 1 million customers from its network as they believe they don’t generate revenue.

The mobile operator, Vodacom shared this development during a trading update for the third quarter ending December 2022.

The mobile operator also reported a net loss of 844,000 local customers in South Africa through the exercise, with its base shrinking by 2.4% to 44.6 million customers in the country.

“Our investment into network resilience and capacity complemented higher customer engagement levels associated with a successful summer campaign and our customer value management powered personalised offers,” the group said in a statement.

“Through our innovative summer campaign, customers were rewarded with Vodabucks by completing personalised goals such as recharging, buying bundles, or paying their bills, keeping our customers engaged on our network while rewarding them for their loyalty.”

Despite losing customers over the quarter, revenue was up 5.0% to R21.9 billion, supported by equipment sales, while service revenue was up 3% to R15.4 billion, driven by new ways to keep customers engaged.

BusinessTech Africa has learned that the mobile contract ARPU of R299 was flat, with the price increases offset by repricing pressure associated with the government contract for mobile services within Vodacom Business.

“We added 132,000 contract customers in the quarter, with a base of 6.7 million, up 4.6%. Our prepaid segment delivered a good result, given the challenging macro backdrop associated with higher inflation and power availability challenges,” the company said.

The company also announced that there was growth in the consumer segment and it saw strong demand for data services and contract price increases of between 3% – 5% implemented in the first quarter of the financial year, Vodacom said.