Johannesburg - Mobile network Vodacom Group [JSE:VOD] has reported revenue growth of 7.6% to R21.7bn across all its African operations for its third quarter ended December 31 2015.

The group has operations in countries ranging from South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mozambique and Lesotho.

Service revenue for the company across its operations grew 7.6% to R17.2bn, the company said Wednesday.

But data revenue, in particular, signalled strong growth for the company as it increased 27.5% to R5.5bn. Group data revenue now represents 32% of service revenue for Vodacom, the company said.

Meanwhile, the group’s total number of active customers are up 6.8% to 65.2 million while the total number of active data customers across all its operations grew 14.5% to 30.3 million.

“Our performance in the quarter reflects the positive impact from our substantial network investment of R9.5 billion across all our operations in the nine months,” said Vodacom chief executive officer Shameel Joosub in a statement.

“Customer demand for high speed mobile data is growing across our footprint, supporting a 27.5% increase in group data revenue.

“Active data customers increased 14.5% to 30.3 million as we increased sales of more affordable data devices in the quarter,” said Joosub.

South Africa

Vodacom also reported strong results in its South African unit with revenue increasing to 7.1% to R17.1bn and service revenue in the country rising 7.2% to R12.7bn.

The number of total active customers in South Africa also increased 8.7% year-on-year to 34.1 million with active prepaid users having increased 10.3% to 29.2 million.

Data revenue in South Africa also increased 27.3% to R4.5bn for the period under review.

Vodacom further said that it spent R2.2bn in the quarter on capital expenditure in South Africa as the company expanded its LTE population coverage to 54% from 47% quarter-on-quarter. Vodacom’s 3G coverage also sits at 98.3% population coverage, said the company’s results.

But Vodacom’s growth in South Africa could be tempered by a struggling economy.

“We expect revenue growth to taper slightly into our last quarter of the financial year due to a stronger prior year comparative and a weaker outlook for the consumer in South Africa due to the drought and weaker exchange rate,” said Joosub.