Technology Correspondent
Vodacom is pushing closer to its goal of earning almost a third of its service revenue from nontraditional sources such as financial services.
For the past decade, South Africa’s mobile operators ― with their international counterparts ― have been working to mitigate the ongoing decline in high-margin voice and SMS revenue, due to rising internet usage, by exploring other areas of business.
In the case of South Africa’s largest mobile provider these lines of business, dubbed “beyond mobile”, include financial services, fixed, digital, and internet of things (IoT). In all instances, Vodacom is looking to capitalise on internet use beyond the data revenue received for such activity.
This week, Vodacom boss Shameel Joosub said, “Beyond mobile is no longer a strategic aspiration; it’s a commercial reality and it’s scaling.”
