Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our results call. So firstly, good afternoon, good morning to those joining the call from the U.S.. I'm joined by our Group CFO, Raisibe Morathi, as well as our Head of Investor Relations, JP Davids. Let's jump into the results itself. During the first quarter, we officially celebrated Vodacom's thirtieth birthday, having signed up our first customer on the 1st of June, 1994, when we switched on our network in South Africa. Three decades later, the Vodacom Group serves more than 200 million customers across the DRC, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania. A footprint that covers more than half a billion people and is almost 12 times greater than when we launched. The impact of this geographical diversification was evident in our trading update for the quarter.
Egypt delivered growth well above the rate of inflation, with normalized group service revenue of 10%. Checking above our medium-term target, service revenue growth was also supported by our product diversification, as the contribution of Beyond Mobile services increased to 21% of group service revenue. Our Tech for Good solutions, which combine our mobile and Beyond Mobile services, helped us generate growth but also drive societal benefit. We have developed solutions across critical verticals, including agriculture, education, energy, and healthcare. The wide-ranging impact of these solutions are set out in our recently published ESG report. In healthcare, our solutions include our stock visibility services in South Africa, mMama for maternal and neonatal emergencies in Tanzania and Lesotho, and digitalising the healthcare system in Egypt. The uni...
The Universal Health Insurance Project in Egypt already serves more than 6 million people and provides a Tech for Good blueprint that we now want to replicate across our markets. In the quarter, we partnered with EgyptAir to implement a pioneering remote monitoring solution that will transmit passengers' vital signs from aircraft to medical personnel at hospitals in real time in case of medical emergencies. From a mergers and acquisitions perspective, our proposed acquisition of a jointly controlled stake in South Africa's fiber operator, MAZIV, is currently before the Competition Tribunal for consideration. We have presented a strong case to the tribunal on the merits of the transaction, including how it will accelerate fiber reach in South Africa, fostering economic development and helping bridge the digital divide.
The final court dates are scheduled for the end of September, and it will be then up to the tribunal to make a final decision. To d eliver on an investment case of attractive and sustainable shareholder returns, we are focused on converting our revenue momentum into earnings and dividend growth. The devaluation of the Egyptian pound in March 2024 is a headwind for our translated rand growth, but already impacted earnings in the second half of the prior year. Pleasingly, our Egyptian business is delivering accelerating revenue growth in both nominal and real terms. We're also implementing measures to drive operational leverage to support rand-based earnings growth in FY 2025. We aim to evidence this focus through the course of the year. Switching back to our trading update for the first quarter, we believe it was a good result.
At the group level, revenue of ZAR 36.2 billion was up 1.5%, despite the Egyptian pound devaluation. On a normalized basis and equivalent to a constant currency measure, group service revenue increased 10%. This compares favorably to our target of high single-digit growth over the medium term. At a product level, Beyond Mobile, which we had previously referred to as new services, reached 20.8% of group service revenue. Beyond Mobile includes fixed, IoT, digital, and financial services, and we target a 25%-30% contribution in the medium term. Financial services is key to our growth ambitions and the largest component of Beyond Mobile. We remain Africa's leading fintech operator, with $400 billion of transactions processed through our mobile money platforms over the last 12 months, including Safaricom.
Our financial services business was up 8.7% or 16.8% on a normalized basis and made up 11.3% of group service revenue. The scaling of this business is important to our earnings and returns outlook, given the lower capital intensity of financial services. Service revenue grew 1.8%... So shifting now focus to South Africa, service revenue grew 1.8% to ZAR 15.3 billion, as an improved performance in the prepaid segment was partially offset by pressure in wholesale revenue. In addition to prepaid, we delivered good growth in consumer contract, financial services, and Vodacom Business, excluding wholesale. Mobile prepaid revenue grew 3.5%, supported by pricing adjustments implemented during the month of May.
The price adjustments we implemented on a More for More basis, which lowers the effective price per megabyte of data and supports data affordability. Pleasingly, the prepaid growth rate improved through the quarter after the pricing adjustments. Also, was a key pressure point in the quarter and will be a key focus area for us to manage through FY 2025. As we progress through the year, we expect that the pricing adjustments in prepaid and pro- and postpaid, together with the growth in Beyond Mobile, will mitigate the impact of the pressure in wholesale. Now, moving on to Egypt. Egypt delivered another excellent performance. Service revenue in local currency was up 43.7%, well above inflation, and accelerated from the fourth quarter growth of 40.6%.
The result was broad-based, with strong growth in consumer mobile and fixed, business and Vodafone Cash. Vodafone Cash revenue grew 87% to EGP 1.1 billion, and increased its contribution to 7% of Egypt's service revenue. In rand terms, revenue was ZAR 7 billion and declined just 1.5%, despite the material impact of the Egyptian pound devaluation. In local currency, revenue growth was 52.5%, supported by fee income on the Vodafone Cash deposits. This fee income is earned at a higher gross margin, supportive of operational leverage. Now, moving on to our international business. Our international business reported service revenue growth of ZAR 7.4 billion, up 2.3%. The rand growth was impacted by a weaker Tanzanian shilling.
Normalized service revenue growth was 5.7%, with excellent growth in Lesotho, Tanzania, and DRC, offset by Mozambique. Tanzania grew 20% in shillings, while the DRC was up 8.6% in US dollars. Both markets reported strong growth in data and in M-Pesa revenue. In Mozambique, the price floors implemented in May were suspended by the regulator in June. While our market positioning is now more competitive in Mozambique, we are dynamically reallocating CapEx to Tanzania and DRC to fuel the growth in these markets. Our fourth business segment, and important earnings growth, is our associate Safaricom. The results for the Safaricom group are disclosed on a biannual basis and therefore not included in the quarterly update. However, we did provide a short KPI update on Ethiopia.
By the end of the quarter, total sites reached 2,900, while customers increased to 4.6 million, from 2.7 million a year ago. As a reminder, Safaricom has also provided FY 2025 EBIT guidance for its overall business: Kenya and Ethiopia. The midpoint of guidance for the overall business implies 12% EBIT growth, reflecting another year of good growth in Kenya and a peak of losses in Ethiopia. This guidance provide a constructive outlook for our associate income in FY 2025, compared with FY 2024. That concludes my review. Raisibe and I are now ready to answer any questions you may have.
Great. Thanks, Shameel. This is JP Davids from Investor Relations at Vodacom. On the webcast, there is a facility to post your questions. A number have already come through, so I'll be working through those. There are a number of overlapping questions, so I'll try to bucket them. The first few questions comes from Rohit at Citi. And a couple of his questions to get us going. Starting with the prepaid environment. So can we talk a little bit about what we're seeing from a competitive environment within prepaid?
And then, just a little bit tying into Preshendran's question from Nedbank, a little bit of color around what we're seeing post these price ups in terms of the trends in prepaid, and if we've got any color on the voice revenue trends in South Africa. So maybe just a sort of an overview of how things have landed in the prepaid segment.
Sure. So, firstly, from a competitive environment perspective, let's start there. Telkom did put up prices late last year, very, very quietly, but they put, they put prices up. And, and in some cases, we saw as much as a 14% increase on some of their pricing. So that was, towards the end of the calendar year last year. Secondly, we then put our prices up, an average of between, I would say 5%-7%, both in postpaid and in prepaid. The postpaid prices took effect from first of April. The prepaid prices took effect from, I would say, towards the end of May. So, so essentially what you saw, is... And then, from a competitive perspective, MTN has followed suit.
They've also done price ups. Cell C, honestly, nothing really, but it hasn't had much of an impact on the market whatsoever. So what you've seen, and I think they're more into optimizing parts and still losing share. So where that's so in the if we look at market shares, essentially, at the end of March, we gained 0.2, MTN gained 0.2, Telkom gained just over, I think, 0.7, and Cell C lost about 1.1. So you're seeing growth from all the different players. Remember, the pricing strategy has been a More for More part, which essentially brings down the effective rate.
So, if you had a gig of data, you're increasing it to 1.2, and you're putting up the price slightly. So that's the by 5%, and you're giving maybe 10% more value. So that was the premise that we did both on postpaid and prepaid, and that's worked pretty well for us and worked very well for us. So, you know, in terms of effects, as we put the price through on prepaid, we're seeing that the momentum will carry through the year. And so we're much happier with the, you know, the outlook for the prepaid performance. In terms of voice, voice declines have declined to -1.5%.
So in this quarter, we had a 1.5% decline in voice versus a 5.5% in Q4 last year. Then you're seeing an acceleration of data, where data's up 9%, in terms of revenue. So there is a positive trend, I would say, on prepaid, for the year. And we've only really seen the price ups towards the end of the quarter, so we should have, you know, a little bit more momentum through the year.
Okay. Maybe just changing gear a little bit to picking up on a question from Jonathan Kennedy-Good of Prescient. Just wanted to talk about- he wanted to talk a little bit about the South African postpaid revenue trajectory, which is, you know, obviously at around 3 and a bit % at the moment. As to whether we can see this accelerate towards 5%. And I guess tying in Jono's question from Absa around Vodacom business drag, you know, any signs of this starting to ease, or does it remain a pressure throughout FY25?
Yeah, so that's kind of dragged the numbers a little bit. It's because I think the consumer part's quite strong. The business side has been, you know, a bit better than flattish. So, we do see that that improves through the year. So, yes, there is potential.
Then, a separate question from Jono, but also Madhura from HSBC. They just wanted to get a little bit more color on the CIVH deal or the MAZIV deal, which we touched on in the intro remarks. So, I guess, one, how confident are we of a favorable result? And then, related to that question, you know, if the deal is blocked, is there a plan B for us?
Yeah, so I think what's happened. So effectively, you know, we've had a chance to present our case, both as CIVH and Vodacom. I think we presented a very strong case. I think, you know, we produced all the rationale for the transaction. And we negated the concerns around fiber versus fixed wireless, and put a strong case forward that actually they complement and they're not in competition, and that fixed wireless will never be able to really compete full on with fiber. So, of course, the pro-competitive parts of the deal at the tribunal, you know, the DTI, the Department of Trade and Industry, was there.
They also had a chance to question us, specifically on the commitments that the parties have made in terms of the pro-competitive benefits to the consumers, including the capital investment of ZAR 10 billion, including 1 million rural homes passed, including, you know, the investment into local supply development, and so on and so on. So, you know, a whole list of different things. So that's the one part. I think also, initially when the hearing started, you had a Rain and a MTN who asked to be interveners. Rain then came out strongly in support of the deal. And MTN, at the end of last week, also came out in support of the deal. So essentially, now we're in a position, and that's, of course, public.
Where we are right now is, there's still some further hearings that will happen towards the end of August and September, and then... 'Cause they... There's still some expert witnesses that have to still present. And yes, then by end of September, the hearings will be wrapped up, and shortly after that, there's a time period in which the tribunal needs to make a decision. So we are... We think we've put a very good case forward, and the benefits of the deal are so good for South Africa. Honestly, yeah, let's see. So we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think we have put a strong case forward.
Okay, then across a few of the different analysts, there's this question around Mozambique. So, what is the outlook there? Any chance of the price floor being reinstated? And I guess just more broadly, what is the outlook for that market?
Yeah. So I think, so essentially what's happened is, there was a clear recognition by the authorities that there was a problem. So I think that's the starting point. What then happened was that the price increase was probably too big in one shot. It should have probably been phased in. You know, but that's how the regulator chose to do it, was essentially to put it in. That created a bit of noise in the market, and, and given the noise that had happened in the South African environment around elections, I think it created a little bit of, sensitivity and so on. So essentially, you know, it was removed. And what the comment that, you know, you can come back and talk to us after elections.
What it has done though is, so honestly, it's a pity because it was just starting—we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I think both operators were seeing the benefit of it. What has happened is there has been some market repair in that the unlimited offers from Viettel, they've not put back. And what it's done one way or the other, we're now completely competitive in terms of pricing. So we are, you know, at the same price or within a 5% difference between us and competition. So yeah, we've taken it, we've repriced it.
We've also done a lot in terms of cost management and redoing the costs, and running the business with a lighter amount of staff, and so on and so on. So looked at and are still busy trying to address. We've done the first pool of costs. We're busy with the next pool of costs, and so on and so on, so that we can try and improve margins on a lower price. Of course, it doesn't happen overnight, but essentially that's the trajectory that we're on. But we're more competitive now, and we're more competitive on the price side as well.
But we're gonna have to take some of the pain, as we remember, we've already repriced, so a lot of the pain's already been taken, but we're seeing through this next part, and we've now stayed the decline, and it's starting to turn slowly.
Then switching to Egypt, and then we're gonna come back to South Africa for a few questions. On Egypt, I guess there's a recognition that you've had a nice, still great growth in data traffic despite the 15% increase. Any further scope for price ups or any further pricing actions we could expect out of that market?
Yeah. I think what we're trying to do is to try and institutionalize some kind of price changes, but I think in Egypt, these things don't happen overnight. So, so we are still busy with talks and are pushing for further price ups. Early days still, and of course, we don't like to count our chickens before they hatch. So, you know, I think that's where we are. But I think what's really encouraging is that you've got certain momentum. So you had the price ups in January, and then, of course, from there, you've also had the added content and added value that we've added into packages, and so on and so on. So all of that, and the data growth being, you know, growing quite nicely.
So you, you've got strong growth all around. You've got strong growth in enterprise, you've got strong growth in consumer, you've got strong growth in data. Your financial services is growing 87%. So you're really in a, in a nice trajectory, and so... And you've got strong customer growth. So all round, you know, I think there's a multitude, all cylinders of the business is firing, so to speak.
Okay, maybe coming back to South Africa, a question for you, Raisibe. Jono from Absa, just on the Please Call Me case, he, his specific question is, "If leave to appeal the Con Court is denied, the Constitutional Court, is the default outcome then in line with the majority judgment?" which I guess been quoted as a range of, starting at ZAR 29 billion.
Hi, Jono. So it is a bit more complex than that because, the SCA judgment, had some variations with, as an example, they said between 5% and 7.5%, and they also, quote two types of interest that can be applied, compound or mora interest. So, therefore, to execute on that judgment, there still need to be a legal process, which could also be determined, which needs to be determined by a court, to be more precise. So therefore, whilst the range of numbers point to anything between ZAR 29 billion and ZAR 63 billion, but there will still need to be another court step.
Okay. Shameel, coming back to you, and in South Africa, a couple of analysts, Jonathan from Prescient and Rohit from Citi, just asking about the changes in government. So we've obviously got a new telecommunications minister. Have we had any interactions with the new minister? And if so, should we expect any significant regulatory changes, either positive or negative?
I think the engagements thus far have been positive in terms of of the outlook and of course trying to deliver on, you know, basically broadband and connectivity, and so on. So all the noise, the noises or all the noise overtures. We are having more detailed engagements with the minister in the weeks to come, in the days and weeks to come, so I mean, having just given him some time to get his feet under the table, so to speak. But I mean, all the overtures thus far are all positive, so there's nothing negative, let me put it that way, that's coming out.
... Okay, then I think we did a good job talking through the enterprise trends, but maybe just for completeness, just to cover off wholesale. I mean, we did allude to pressure there, and it's you know, Nadim in particular is asking some questions around the wholesale trajectory for the rest of the year. You know, at what point do you start lapping this weakness? And then he's got a separate modeling question, which I'll take, and maybe I'll just quickly take that one. Just asking around whether we'd expect any further deletions of inactive customers in our next quarter for South Africa. No, not one. Nothing material.
I mean, we, I guess the slightly more detailed answer or full answer is that we, we're constantly deleting inactive customers, 'cause there's a subscriber rule in place. But I wouldn't suspect you would see anything in terms, material in terms of the subscriber numbers going forward. Shameel, maybe back to you on the wholesale side?
Yeah, I think, so basically we've had a repricing on Cell C, and signing a new term agreement with Cell C. So that's one. And then also an extension of the current agreement, a short-term extension. We're still busy negotiating on a long-term agreement with Telkom, but we've both given ourselves some time to be able to achieve that. So some of it is the repricing on Telkom, and some of it is the repricing on Cell C. And that has impacted us. And effectively, that's, you know, that's about a ZAR 50 million a month impact. Which we trying to offset with a...
That's why we've been deliberate on Prepaid and Postpaid, and also Beyond Mobile, to make sure that we know there's this pressure, and that we're kind of making sure that we can compensate on the other lines.
Okay. Then perhaps a couple of easier modeling questions I can quickly take from Rohit and Preshendran. And the first one around non-service revenue growth, sequentially slowing a little bit from quarter to quarter. As you guys know, there are a few lines in there, one of them being the Rain agreement. I guess one of the messages we've consistently had on Rain is we would look to manage the EBITDA impact. So whatever the revenue trend is, you know, you'd see an offset in the cost side, so that remains a focus for us. Then there was a question on the airtime advance, the level of airtime advance in the quarter. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, getting close to around 50%.
So, a fraction higher than in prior quarters, but I think the key point on airtime advance is, you know, it is closely linked to the prepaid results. So we did see an improved prepaid result and an improved airtime advance result with that, with the overall South African financial service business doing nicely at 8.9%. Shameel, a question then to you from David at New Street Research. He wanted a comment on financial services growth, but especially in international, which seems like it has had a bit of a slowdown quarter-on-quarter.
Yeah. So, we have had a bit of a slowdown, and that's all related to Mozambique. So effectively what we've had to do in Mozambique is reprice P2P to stay competitive, and what because of the competition that we've had there. And that's actually turning out to have been the, you know, that we're now starting to see the growth come back. But we had to grow in terms of usage and so on, and so on, but there is a P2P reduction that has come through Mozambique, and that's dampened the results. You've still got very strong growth across all the markets on financial services bar Mozambique.
A follow-up question from Maddie on South African voice revenue. I guess he picked up, obviously, a reasonably modest decline in the quarter, and just asking, is that a signal that it's maybe bottomed out here? Would you agree?
I think what we're doing is trying to make sure that we can bottom it out, which is essentially creating, you know, more attractive voice offers, using our CVM engines more. So, you know, trying to manage the voice decline. I think across the group last year that was probably, you know, one of our big issues, voice declines. I think across many of the markets now, with the actions and the deliberate actions we've taken, we are seeing an improvement in voice trends. So that's been really good.
Perhaps a question for you, Raisibe, on from Maddie. Just looking at our CapEx run rate for the first quarter looks a little bit softer across the board. Would we expect it to ramp up in later quarters? And then a question for you, Shameel, on any plans to monetize our mobile money businesses at some point in time?
So CapEx, yes, it will normalize. The CapEx guidance that we have given, we believe we'll still be able to deliver within that and the decision around, you know, phasing of CapEx, sometimes we take advantage of the exchange rates, but obviously, as you know, in South Africa, as an example, the rand was quite depressed at the beginning of the quarter. And also it depends on, you know, the phasing in the prior year. But we expect that we'll still deliver CapEx within that envelope that we guided on.
And then Shameel, to you on the question around potentially spinning off or selling off part of the mobile money businesses.
Yeah, I think, I think we've created optionality for ourselves, but I don't think we're there yet. I think we're watching the space, to be frank, and seeing, you know, what's happening with our competitors. And is there any real sustainable benefit that comes from this by, you know, getting, getting a small once-off benefit, that we don't, we don't see as attractive to us? So, you know, unless there's a real benefit in terms of relating of share prices, and so on, and so on, we don't really want to create more complexity for ourselves. And, and it's probably one of our most profitable businesses, so we'd rather keep it in.
Okay, that is the end of the questions I have in front of me. So just as a reminder to everyone on the call, if you do have follow-ups, you're very welcome to get in contact with Vodacom Investor Relations. And I guess I'll just hand over to Shameel for a closing sentence or two.
Thank you, and thank you for joining us on today's call. If there are any other questions that you might have, please reach out to the Vodacom Investor Relations team. We'll see you on the roadshows and, breakfasts and lunches, and so on. Enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you.