Vodacom Group is intensifying its push to get more prepaid customers onto smartphones through device financing initiatives, as mobile operators across Africa race to increase smartphone penetration and drive higher data usage.
The group’s Easy2Own offering allows customers to acquire smartphones through small daily or weekly repayments, lowering the cost barrier that has kept millions of prepaid users on basic feature phones.
Speaking after the group’s annual results, Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub said the model was designed around affordability and flexibility for lower-income consumers.
“Essentially what you do is you give the customer a phone, they pay a deposit upfront, and then you can have daily or weekly repayments,” Joosub said.
“So for the R10 a day, you get minutes, megabytes and phone repayment. If you don’t pay, the phone is locked. If you pay, the phone opens up. You’ve got one year to pay. When you finish paying, the phone opens up permanently.”
He said the structure allows consumers to buy devices in “small increments” depending on what they can afford at a given time.
Voice has been coming down structurally, as people use voice over data, things like WhatsApp and so on
— Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO
Telecom operators are increasingly positioning themselves as broader digital-service providers rather than pure connectivity businesses, using devices as the gateway to financial services, insurance products and digital platforms.
The shift is critical, as smartphone users typically consume significantly more data than feature-phone users, helping offset structural declines in traditional voice revenue as consumers migrate to internet-based calling platforms such as WhatsApp.
Joosub acknowledged that voice revenues remain under pressure. “Voice has been coming down structurally, as people use voice over data, things like WhatsApp and so on,” he said, adding that voice is becoming a smaller part of the business.
In the year to March, Vodacom added 18.8-million smartphones, lifting smartphone penetration across the group to 68.6%, supported by continued progress in handset affordability innovations.
“Across the markets, we did about R5m asset financing,” Joosub said.
Pep is also playing a role in boosting smartphone adoption with its FoneYam smartphone rental business, which has leased more than 2.3-million handsets.
Joosub said consumers are not necessarily gravitating toward the cheapest devices. “We offer the entry level, but they don’t like the entry level. They want the Samsungs ... They are choosing, I would say, a better, bigger-screen device.”
Vodacom added 26-million customers, more than double its annual Vision 2030 target of 10-million, taking its total customer base to more than 237-million across South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. In South Africa Vodacom has 46.1-million subscribers.
Vodacom is also pushing fibre connectivity following a transaction with fibre infrastructure group Maziv, whose assets include Vumatel and Kenya-based Safaricom. The fibre footprint from the combined companies, including Vodacom, is expected to reach 3.6-million homes passed, with about 2.9-million of those in South Africa.
“Our intention is to take [connectivity] to 50%,” said Shameel Joosub, referring to the proportion of homes connected to fibre. He noted that connectivity rates in South Africa currently sit at 42%-43%.
Markets are benefiting from a base of lower penetration, both absolute and in terms of smartphones, presenting good runway, while pricing discipline is enabling better conversion of demand for data into growth
— Mike Gresty, fund manager at Anchor Capital
The fibre push complements Vodacom’s broader strategy of migrating customers onto high-speed data networks and digital services, alongside efforts to accelerate smartphone adoption. These digital services are part of its “beyond mobile” strategy, which includes financial services. In the year to March they generated R29.8bn, contributing 22.3% of total group service revenue of R133.6bn, with strong performances in Egypt, Tanzania, DRC and Lesotho.
Mike Gresty, fund manager at Anchor Capital, said the group’s financial 2026 performance came in ahead of market expectations, largely due to stronger contributions from non-South African operations.
“South Africa remained weak, as expected, but there was some sign of service revenue growth inflecting a bit more positively in the fourth quarter.”
He said the South African business appeared to be moving through the worst of its pricing reset, although trading conditions would likely remain subdued. “South Africa is well through the price transformation that has been pressuring service revenue growth.”
Gresty said that as demand for data services grew, Vodacom’s broader African portfolio offered significantly stronger structural growth prospects. “Markets are benefiting from a base of lower penetration, both absolute and in terms of smartphones, presenting good runway, while pricing discipline is enabling better conversion of demand for data into growth.”
He said the balance of Vodacom’s profits has shifted materially over the past decade toward higher-growth regions outside South Africa.
“The outlook for the rest of the operations is far more positive and should enable the group to deliver solid double-digit growth in the year ahead. Generally, the stars are aligning for Vodacom growth-wise at the moment after a period of 10 years when earnings went broadly sideways.”
Business Times
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