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* Targets 73 mln fintech customers by March 2024
* Ethiopia and Egypt to boost fintech customers
* Half-year headline earnings per share fall 5.1%
(Recasts throughout)
By Nqobile Dludla
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 15 (Reuters) - South Africa's largest
mobile operator Vodacom Group is targeting a 27%
expansion in its financial services customer base to 73 million
by March 2024, it said on Monday, as it reported a 5.1% fall in
half-year earnings.
Shares in the group, which is majority owned by Britain's
Vodafone, dropped more than 2%.
Mobile phone operators like Vodacom have been pushing into
financial services in Africa, where many do not have good access
to traditional banking.
The company said it hopes its newly launched VodaPay digital
financial services "super app" and mobile money service M-Pesa
will help drive the uptake of financial services.
VodaPay currently provides business loans, device insurance
and funeral cover, while M-Pesa provides services including
lending, insurance and payments.
In future VodPay will also offer loans and savings,
international money transfer, QR code payments, and
person-to-person payments, Vodacom said.
In the six months to Sept. 30 the group's financial services
customers, including those of Kenyan subsidiary Safaricom
, hit 57.3 million, and the division posted a service
revenue jump of 22.7%, almost 10% of its total in Africa.
To reach its target, the company will need to add roughly 8
million customers for the next two years.
"We'd like to increase our penetration of financial services
through all our markets, including South Africa and of course
now Egypt and Ethiopia as well," Group Chief Executive Shameel
Joosub told Reuters.
"We see that as key to our growth," he said. He did not
comment on how much revenue that would bring.
Given the high level of smartphone penetration in Egypt,
Vodacom wants to expand its VodaPay platform there, where it is
buying a 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt.
Its headline earnings per share (HEPS), the main profit
measure in South Africa, fell to 505 cents, hit by foreign
exchange headwinds and a tax-related one-off charge.
Group service revenue increased 5.4% to 38.9 billion rand,
while operating profit rose 5.7% to 14.1 billion rand, both on a
normalised basis.
It plans to invest more than 10.5 billion rand in its
network in South Africa until March 2022, it said.
($1 = 15.3162 rand)
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Jan
Harvey)
