Telecommunications group Vodacom on Monday posted a strong start to the 2016 financial year as the South African operations recovered and the international operations continued its solid performance.

After overcoming what was previously described as one of its toughest years yet, with contractions across the board for the financial year to March 2015, Vodacom bounced back into growth, as revenue, earnings and customers regained some ground during the first half of the 2016 financial year.

JSE-listed Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said on Monday that, during the six months to September 30, the company achieved a 6% rise in headline earnings a share to 440c, while earnings a share edged up 4.5% to 441c apiece.

Group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) for the first half of the year surged 13% to R14.7-billion with a 2.1 percentage point expansion in the Ebitda margin to 36.7%.

Revenue tracked up 6.4% to R40-billion and service revenue increased 4.9% to R32-billion.

During the half-year under review, Vodacom lifted its capital expenditure (capex) 5.8% to R6.2-billion, expanding technology and population coverage to support a 6.8% increase in customers to 65.1-million.

In South Africa, Ebitda rose 13.1% to R12.2-billion, recording an Ebitda margin expansion of 2.8 percentage points to 38.7%, while revenue ticked up 5.1% to R31.7-billion.

“Superstrong” data demand, in addition to a return to growth, an easing of the impact of mobile termination rate cuts, 1.6-million net customer additions and average revenue per user (Arpu) stabilisation after an accelerated capex programme, resulted in a 2.9% increase in service revenue to R24.1-billion for the six months to September.

Data revenue increased 33.4% to R8.3-billion on the back of “exceptional” 48% growth in data demand and the improved affordability of devices and data bundles.

Data revenue in South Africa now accounted for 34.3% of service revenue, compared with 26.4% a year ago, with the number of active data customers increasing 6.8% to 17.8-million in the period under review.

Vodacom injected R4-billion in South Africa to bolster its network, widening the coverage of its third-generation (3G) and long-term evolution (LTE)/fourth-generation (4G) data coverage, improving voice quality and increasing data speeds.

Vodacom now covered  98% of the population through 3G technology and 47% with LTE/4G coverage.

Internationally, Ebitda increased 10% to R2.4-billion, contributing 16.4% to group earnings, despite a slightly declining Ebitda margin from 28.9% to 28.2%.

Service revenue, which accounted for 25.7% of group service revenue, increased by 12.4% with growth achieved in all of Vodacom’s markets.

Data revenue grew 34.3%, driven by a 14.2% increase in active data customers to 10.5-million.

Vodacom’s international capex during the six months under review increased 24.8% to R2.2-billion to increase the number of 3G sites by 46.6% and second-generation sites by 24.2%.

Vodacom maintained its medium-term targets of service revenue in the low single digits, Ebitda growth in the mid-single digits and capex between 14% and 17% of group revenue.

Vodacom declared an interim dividend of 395c a share for the six months.