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TELKOM SA SOC LIMITED - Quarterly trading and operational update for the third quarter ended 31 December 2015

Release Date: 01/02/2016 09:12
Code(s): TKG     PDF:  
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Quarterly trading and operational update for the third quarter ended 31 December 2015

Telkom SA SOC Limited
Registration number 1991/005476/30)
JSE share code: TKG
ISIN: ZAE000044897
("Telkom" or “the company”)


Quarterly trading and operational update for the third quarter ended 31 December
2015

Key features

    -   Fibre to the curb (FTTC): 1 250 000 homes passed with fibre;
    -   Fibre to the home (FTTH): 56 000 homes passed;
    -   LTE sites grew 9% to approximately 1400 sites;
    -   ADSL subscribers increased 3% to 1 018 107;
    -   Fixed data revenue excluding leased line revenue increased 5%;
    -   Active mobile subscribers grew 22% to 2 565 793, with a blended ARPU of R90.26;
    -   Postpaid subscribers grew 45% while prepaid subscribers increased by 15%;
    -   BCX integration on track.



Financial overview

The economic and operating environment has deteriorated driven by lower commodity prices
and a weakening Rand. The outlook remains challenging on the back of lower growth
expectations, higher interest rates and rising inflation. Against this backdrop, we prioritised
our capital expenditure programme to focus on the growth areas of fibre and LTE. We have
extended our debt maturity profile by raising a R1 billion term loan. We remain
conservatively geared with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of approximately 0.3 times.

We have made progress in migrating from our legacy to the next generation network and
have subsequently seen a slower decline of leased line revenues with growth in data
connectivity products and services.
Our mobile business continued to achieve good growth with services revenue up 37% and data
revenue up 56% year on year. Our initial expectation that the mobile business would break even
by March 2016, has been tempered by the operating environment and cost pressures .We are
however confident that we will maintain the current positive revenue growth witnessed in this part
of our business.
Excluding BCX, our operating expenses remained flat as we benefitted from our multiyear
transformation initiatives. We also made progress on the sale of non-core assets during the
quarter.
The results exclude voluntary early retirement and severance packages and includes operating
results of our newly acquired subsidiary, Business Connexion (BCX).


                                                    Three months
                                                      ended 31
                                                     December Year-on-year
                                                        2015     variance

                                                        Rm


Group net revenue                                         7,246       up 7%

Group operating expenses                                  4,710      up 13%

Group capital expenditure                                 1,522      up 22%

Fixed voice revenue                                       3,589     down 5%

Mobile data revenue                                          417     up 56%




Excluding BCX the operating results are as follows:


Group net revenue                                        6,756     down 0.3%

Group operating expenses                                 4,272        up 2%



Outlook
We expect continued weakness in the economy and anticipate that our customers will
migrate to cheaper packages or delay spending on new infrastructure. We will partner with
our customers to contain costs as well take up any opportunities presented by the current
environment to grow our business.


This trading and operational update has neither been reviewed nor reported on by the company’s
external auditors.


Centurion
1 February 2016


Sponsor:
The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited


Special note regarding forward-looking statements
Many of the statements included in this document, as well as verbal statements that may be made by us or by officers, directors or employees acting on our behalf,
constitute or are based on forward-looking statements.

All statements, other than statements of historical facts, including, among others, statements regarding our convergence and other strategies, future financial position and
plans, objectives, capital expenditures, projected costs and anticipated cost savings and financing plans, as well as projected levels of growth in the communications
market, are forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results and outcomes to be
materially different from historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause our actual results
or outcomes to differ materially from our expectations, include, but are not limited to those risks identified in Telkom’s most recent annual report, which is available on
Telkom’s website at www.telkom.co.za/ir.

We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All written and verbal forward-looking statements attributable to us, or persons acting on
our behalf, are qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Moreover, unless we are required by law to update these statements, we will not necessarily
update any of these statements after the date of this document, so that they conform either to the actual results or to changes in our expectations.

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