That expansion led the company to incur start-up losses in Ethiopia of 458 million rand ($26.42 million). Higher finance costs of 391 million rand also dented earnings. Group operating profit decreased 5.6% to 13.3 billion rand on modest growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) due to higher operating costs. On Friday Safaricom, which is partly owned by Vodacom and Vodafone, also reported a drop in its first-half net income, citing the network rollout in Ethiopia. This resulted in Safaricom's contribution to Vodacom's operating profit falling 7.3% to 1.5 billion rand, Joosub said.

Source: Ethiopian News November 14, 2022 07:48 UTC