As voice revenue dwindles into a commodity and the industry braces for data eventually to go the same way, Telkom Group CEO Serame Taukobong reckons the operator has years of data-driven growth still ahead of it – and a broader definition of “data” than its mobile rivals.
Asked by TechCentral where Telkom’s growth will come from once data follows voice into commoditisation, Taukobong said he did not expect data to decline as sharply as voice has.
Because voice makes up a relatively small share of Telkom’s mobile base, he said, the company is not feeling the revenue deflation its larger competitors are. “The growth is really coming through from data usage, so we’re quite comfortable [there],” he said, adding that data would “continue driving that growth thrust, certainly in the next four to five years”.
Rather than betting on mobile data alone, Taukobong said the growth will come from “total data consumption across the ecosystem” – fixed, wholesale, carrier and, increasingly, AI.
Three engines
He pointed to three engines:
- On the wholesale side, Openserve is benefiting as enterprises demand ever more data;
- On the carrier side, volumes grow as consumers lean on their devices for data rather than voice; and
- Demand from artificial intelligence.
“As you move up the [solution] stack to the growth of AI, that consumes a lot of data … and that’s where the bigger pipes start to come in,” he said, arguing that Telkom’s network and wholesale assets position it to carry that traffic. “As the pivot of where data consumption moves, we are ready for that uplift.”
Taukobong drew a pointed contrast with MTN and Vodacom, suggesting their data growth narratives are focused largely on mobile. “Our data platform is not that one-dimensional. It’s looking at total data consumption across the ecosystem, and that’s what we built,” he said.
In its results for the year ended 31 March 2026, Telkom’s data revenue rose 7.6% to R26.6-billion and now accounts for almost 60% of group revenue. Mobile data subscribers grew 31.1% to about 20 million, and Openserve recorded its first revenue growth in nine years, up 2.3%. Group revenue edged up just 1.4% to R44.48-billion.
The “what comes after data” question is one all South African operators are wrestling with. Voice has already been commoditised by messaging apps and bundled minutes, and many in the industry expect data pricing to erode the same way as networks expand and capacity grows cheaper.
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Vodacom and MTN have leaned heavily on financial services and fintech as their “beyond connectivity” story. MTN has recently also begun ramping up investment in AI data centres and edge AI solutions at its base station sites. In some respects, MTN’s bet is more focused on compute (data centres), while Telkom is eyeing the transport layer (the “bigger pipes” carrying AI traffic).
Taukobong’s bet, then, is that the volume of data crossing Telkom’s networks – fixed, mobile, wholesale and AI-driven – will keep expanding fast enough, and across enough of the value chain, to outrun the commoditisation of any single segment. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media