Telkom SA announced that the disposal of its masts and towers business, Swiftnet, is at an advanced stage, according to TFS-Tech Financials. Swiftnet is a Telkom SA subsidiary managed by Telkom SA-owned Gyro Group. With 6,225 masts and towers, the company said that Swiftnet is South Africa’s largest independently run tower portfolio.
The mobile network operator added that Swiftnet continues commercializing its portfolio. For FY23 ending March 31, the towerco realized year-over-year marginal revenue growth of nearly one percent to over $16 million. Swiftnet’s EBITDA margin remains healthy at almost 69 percent. The company said this performance was driven by the construction of 66 additional towers and eight new in-building coverage systems.
“Continued modernization by mobile network operators on our sites, coupled with new base station sites and the deployment of 5G by our clients, grew revenue from continuing customers by 10.3%, mitigating the impact of terminations and decommissioning by two customers,” said Telkom SA.
After launching its first 5G outdoor Distributed Antenna System small cell sites that will support Telkom SA’s 5G rollout plans, Swiftnet successfully tested the technical capability of its power-as-a-service solution.
“This will help curb the impact of load shedding in our operations and enable us to offer PaaS solutions as a value-added commercial offering making alternative power available to customers struggling with power outages,” said Serame Taukobong, Telkom SA’s CEO.
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