Vodacom’s revenue rose by 151% from R67 billion to R169 billion while Shameel Joosub has led the company as CEO, MyBroadband reported.
Net profit grew from R10 billion to R27 billion over the same period. Joosub took over as Vodacom CEO in 2012.
Group service revenue rose by 138%, from R38 billion to R139 billion. EBITDA, a measure of operating earnings, went up by 175% from R23 billion to R63 billion.
According to MyBroadband, the growth came from organic growth, expansion into new countries and new sources of income.
Before Joosub became CEO, Vodacom had 47.8 million customers. They were in South Africa, Tanzania, Lesotho, the DRC and Mozambique.
The company now has 237.3 million customers. Its operations cover South Africa, Egypt, the DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Joosub joined Vodacom in 1994, soon after the company was formed. This made him one of the mobile operator’s first employees.
Former Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig saw his potential early, and Joosub moved up quickly. From 1998 he served as managing director of several Vodacom subsidiaries.
He took charge of Vodacom South Africa in 2005. He then spent two years as CEO of Vodafone Spain before coming home in 2012.
Under his leadership, Vodacom launched South Africa’s first commercial LTE network. It also launched the country’s first 5G mobile network.
Vodacom has also moved beyond mobile calls and data. In 2012, M-Pesa was growing in Tanzania but struggled in South Africa.
The company now runs three financial super-apps: VodaPay, M-Pesa and Vodafone Cash. They serve 103 million financial services customers and 13 million active super-app users.
Vodacom processed US$525.6 billion in yearly mobile money transactions. These ran across 3.9 million active merchants.
The group is also a large fibre player after investing in Maziv, which owns Vumatel and DFA. Joosub said the deal will help Vodacom speed up fibre to homes and network sites across the country.
He said millions of South Africans who have waited a long time for reliable fixed broadband will get high-speed fibre.
Vodacom’s fibre network now passes 3.6 million homes. In Kenya, the company is taking fibre to low-cost government housing projects.
Its business division now offers multi-cloud hosting, private mobile networks, cybersecurity and IoT services.
Vodacom also runs health and education platforms. One is m-mama, an emergency transport system for pregnant women and new mothers. It has saved more than 9,000 lives in Tanzania and Lesotho.
Joosub is the longest-serving CEO of a large telecommunications company in South Africa, according to MyBroadband.
Source: this article is based on reporting by MyBroadband. Image: MyBroadband. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.