JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s Telkom reported a 6.5% rise in quarterly core profit on Tuesday, helped by subscriber growth and increased use of its “next-generation network” (NGN) offerings as it ditched legacy services.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), came in at 2.8 billion rand ($155.62 million) in the first quarter ended June 30, South Africa’s third-largest telecom company said in a statement.
Overall group revenue rose 1.1% to 10.82 billion rand with mobile service revenue and Openserve’s fibre data revenue up 7.8% and 11.3%, respectively.
Telkom said mobile data subscribers surged 27.5% to 17.2 million, while there was a 17.5% increase in the number of homes connected with fibre.
The majority state-owned company has been investing in migrating customers away from copper-based technology to offerings such as fibre and long-term evolution – a 4G wireless standard – as customers seek faster internet services.
($1 = 17.9928 rand)
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov;Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
