UPDATE 1-South Africa’s Vodacom posts half-year profit slide as Ethiopian costs bite

(Adds results details)

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 11 (Reuters) – South Africa’s biggest telecoms operator Vodacom, majority owned by Britain’s Vodafone, reported a 19.4% drop in half-year earnings, hurt by start-up losses in Ethiopia and foreign currency depreciation.

Vodacom launched Safaricom Ethiopia last year with a consortium led by Kenya’s Safaricom, which is part-owned by the South African company and Vodafone, betting that the populous nation will power growth after about five years of investment.

The group said in a statement that Safaricom’s profit was stunted by Ethiopian operations which were “impacted by currency reforms in the period.” The business, however, reached a 6.1 million customer base, up 47.1% year-over-year, reflecting strong commercial momentum.

Headline earnings per share, a profit measure, fell to 353 cents in the six months ended on Sept. 30, from 438 cents a year earlier.

Group service revenue declined 1.2% to 58.6 billion rand ($3.33 billion) due to currency headwinds, however, on a normalised basis it grew 9.9%.

The board declared an interim dividend per share of 285 cents. ($1 = 17.6023 rand) (Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Kim Coghill and Eileen Soreng)

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