Telkom has released its interim results for the period ending on 30 September 2010. The company’s revenue was down 5.4% to R17.6 billion, whilst its profit from continuing operations was down 9.3% to R1.4 billion.

 

“The period under review has been challenging yet exciting,” said Telkom’s Acting Group CEO Jeffrey Hedberg. “The crowning achievements are Telkom’s delivery of the Soccer World Cup 2010 and the launch of 8ta, our new mobile service.”

 

“It is essential to stabilise the business by allocating our resources more efficiently,” said Hedberg. “We are doing this through exiting the CDMA business in Nigeria, closing down non strategic parts of the business and focusing our international activities primarily on corporate customers. This focus allows us to allocate capital more efficiently to those areas of the business that deliver a customer solution and drive revenue growth and margin.”

 

Hedberg stated that the introduction of 8ta provided Telkom with an important means of retaining and growing the Group’s customer base and is expected to help in differentiation by bundling mobile, fixed line and IT services for both the consumer and corporate segments.

 

“We are excited by the response that 8ta has generated and we look forward to mobility complementing our suite of competitive products and services,” he said.

 

Since the launch of 8ta last month, the mobile network signed up 186 033 customers to date and plans on launching fully converged products to corporate and other consumers in the first half of next year.

 

Broadband revenue was also a growth area for the telecommunications giant, with ADSL subscribers increasing by 16% to 699 368, compared to the 30 September 2009 reporting period.

 

Telkom also announced its new SAIX Lite ADSL offering at the beginning of this month, promising to provide consumers with more competitive ADSL bandwidth prices.