The Vodacom Group has reported a 22.6% subscriber growth, to 31.6 million, across all its operations, with South African numbers growing 15.3%, to 23.3 million, for the six months ended 30 September.
This report comes ahead of the group reporting its interim financials on Monday.
The number of prepaid customers increased by 13.5%, to 19.8 million, while the number of contract customers increased by 27.4%, to 3.4 million. Last year, the mobile operator reported 20.2 million subscribers for the same period.
Big churn
Vodacom also reports a 51% churn in prepaid subscriber numbers, the result of a decision to introduce a new rule to disconnect inactive SIM cards after 13 months.
This rule is secondary to an existing policy by Vodacom to disconnect inactive prepaid SIM cards that have not generated revenue on the Vodacom network for seven months.
Revenue-generating activities include making or receiving a call, sending or receiving an SMS, transmitting data or call forwarding to voicemail.
Vodacom first implemented its 13-month rule in September, with the result that 2.9 million prepaid SIM cards were disconnected.
The decision to disconnect provides a better reflection of active prepaid SIM cards on the network and hence results in higher average revenue per user, Vodacom says.
SA has previously been reported to have 89% mobile penetration. However, market watchers have repeatedly questioned the accuracy of subscriber numbers, arguing that inactive SIM cards are being counted, as well as people who have more than one subscription.
MTN and Cell C have previously said they disconnect SIM cards that are inactive after three months.
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