The strangest thing happened this week when Telkom announced its annual results for the year to March. In a departure from the usual feeding frenzy when the previously dysfunctional fixed-line operator released its figures in the past, headlines were mostly positive.The only exception, gleaned from a Google search, was: “Telkom fixed-line shocker”, an article about the drop in the number of Telkom landlines.Telkom has 3.2m landlines, a drop from 3.4m in the previous financial year, and the biggest annual fall since 2001. Landlines peaked in 2000, at 5.5m. As stark as this decline is, it hardly seems like news in this mobile era.Telkom says it has connected 81,503 homes to new, superfast fibre broadband; and last year spent R757m on fibre-to-the-home infrastructure, up 200% over the previous year’s R252m. It has more than 1m broadband subscribers, a slight increase from the previous year.Telkom is now worth R34bn, after its shares climbed 8.3% to R65, as it released its results on Mo...
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