PODCAST | Telkom on the hunt for growth and dominance of SA telecoms

Telkom’s push to dominate SA’s telecoms sector by using its infrastructure assets is the focus of this edition of Business Day Spotlight.

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Telkom Ceo Serame Taukobong at the JSE after the announcement of the group’s interim earnings to September.

Taukobong outlines the group’s strategy to use its vast trove of telecommunications infrastructure, particularly fibre, as its competitive advantage over sector rivals MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, Rain, Liquid and others.

A year ago, the Telkom boss had gone to the market with a strategy which positioned Telkom as the digital backbone of SA.

He explained that the company’s more than 170,000km worth of fibre was helping to boost its mobile, IT services and internet service provider units, among others.

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This comes as the group is completing the sale of its masts and towers unit, Swiftnet.

Taukobong also weighs in on the competition tribunal’s decision to block the Vodacom-Maziv merger, highlighting the possible impact on Telkom and the broader industry.

Through the discussion, Taukobong highlights Telkom’s strategy, current financial performance, capital allocation decisions, importance of infrastructure to the group’s efficiency, growth of mobile, direction of SA’s telecoms industry and efforts to overcome negative market perceptions.

With a fair amount of buzz at the moment about low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite technology through providers like Elon Musk’s Starlink, Telkom continues to see this as complimentary to fibre and mobile, and not necessarily a threat to its operations.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production. 

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