Financial Services Push Pays off for Orange

 

Orange's revenues fell 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 10.9 billion euros on a comparable basis. Across the year, revenues were up 0.3% to 42.3 billion euros, driven by a 5.2% increase in Africa & Middle East, which saw strong demand for 4G and Orange Money, and a 1.6% rise in France.  However, 2020 sales elsewhere in Europe were down 3.5% and enterprise revenues down 1.4%.

Orange Money's revenues rose almost 22% in the fourth quarter, meaning the business generated more than 500 million revenues for the full-year. At the end of 2020, the Orange Money customer base comprised 21.9 million active customers, up 20% year on year.

Orange also reported a 70% rise in net banking income to 69 million euros in 2020. At December 31, 2020, Orange Bank’s customer base in France and Spain, including the mobile insurance offer, was almost 1.2 million customers. It added that Orange Bank Africa, launched at the end of July 2020 in Côte d’Ivoire, already has over 350,000 customers, more than half of whom have taken out loans.  Source: Orange statement

Financial Services Fuels Growth for Vodacom

Vodacom Group, which is majority owned by Vodafone, reported 6.7% year-on-year growth in group revenue (on a normalised basis) for the quarter ending December 30th to 25.1 billion South African rand (1.68 billion US dollars).  The increase was driven by 4.2% service revenue growth and sales of equipment and non-service revenue in South Africa.

The group's financial services revenue was a key growth engine. Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO, said: "Supported by a significant increase in demand for our Airtime Advance product and a healthy increase in insurance policies, our financial services business remains a very strong performer having increased revenue by 24.3%, as the business continues to scale. Our partnership with Alipay will add new dimensions to our financial services’ proposition and in particular VodaPay, which will become our single lifestyle super app."

Revenues from the mobile money payment service M-Pesa increased 10.1%, largely the result of a 7.7% increase in customers. The group reported that almost 16 million people - or just under half of its international customer base (customers outside of South Africa) - are now making use of M-Pesa. Including Safaricom, monthly M-Pesa transactions amounted to 24.2 billion US dollars, up 58% year-on-year.  Source: Vodacom statement