Mobile carrier, Vodacom has reported a 6.4% drop in full-year profit due to a local power crisis and other operational activities.
The JSE-listed company says the dividend was down more than a fifth, in line with Vodacom’s new dividend policy of paying out at least 75% of headline earnings.
The cell phone network provider also says it is confident that the introduction of the electricity wheeling programme that is it pioneering with Eskom will have a significant impact on the country’s power grid.
Vodacom’s CEO, Shameel Joosub says, “We’ve spent over R4 billion in the last four years in terms of batteries and generators and so on and just last year, we spent R300 million just on fuels and fuel generator cost and managing logistics. So, where we see going forward honestly depends on the level of load shedding. We kind of prepared for where we are, but if the situation worsens then of course, there’s more investment that needs to be made.”
