Vodacom is now Africa's largest finance platform. Vodafone, a telecom behemoth, owns the majority of Vodacom, which offers considerably more services than just mobile.

As the largest fintech platform available, Vodacom operates primarily in Africa, where it provides an ecosystem of digital personal financial and business solutions for daily transactions.

With its VodaPay "super app," the telecom behemoth facilitates better access to the digital economy for Africans (the region in which Vodacom operates) and helps small and medium-sized enterprises expand their e-commerce platforms.

Leading the fintech drive in Africa and advancing ESG and sustainability

With the release of its fintech app in 2020, Vodacom experienced notable expansion. Revenue for Q4 2023 increased 26.8% year over year, mostly as a result of its development into other African regions outside of South Africa, the company's primary market.

This involves growing its goods and services throughout the digital, financial, fixed, and Internet of Things sectors as well as strategically entering Egypt.

As part of our commitment to addressing inequality and promoting higher economic value in African markets, Vodacom has, in fact, made cellphones, financial services, and healthcare simpler for users to access in just the past year alone. These initiatives have helped SMEs recover from the epidemic.

"Vodacom Group celebrated several key milestones including Vodacom Mozambique's 20th anniversary, the trialling of 5G in the DRC, and the announcement of Project Kuiper, a strategic collaboration with Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite (LEO) communications initiative," says Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub in response to these recent results.

It was encouraging to observe that our network investment helped to create a 25.4% rise in 4G sites throughout our International business division. This, in turn, encouraged an acceleration of the growth in local currency income.

Vodacom supports SMEs in part because it invests in its own infrastructure. 70% of SMEs in Africa, according to Vodacom research published in March 2024, made investments in new technology during the previous year.

Vodacom has given its SME clients the chance to access additional digital capabilities, boosting connection and lowering implementation costs by growing its own infrastructures, including 4G networks.

CEO Shameel continues, "This report explores the specific challenges SMEs face in Africa and unpacks what needs to be done to help these entrepreneurs overcome these obstacles." The report was recently released and is titled Levelling the SME Playing Field.

"Our results demonstrate the important role that technology can play in supporting small businesses in seizing new opportunities, obtaining funding, raising efficiency, cutting expenses, and improving competitiveness."