Telkom Group’s chief executive Serame Taukobong told industry reporters that, even as voice revenue continues to erode into a commodity, the operator still has several years of robust data‑driven growth ahead. Unlike many of its rivals, Telkom is not putting all its eggs in the mobile‑data basket; instead it is banking on the total data consumption across its entire ecosystem – fixed broadband, wholesale traffic, carrier services and the burgeoning demand from artificial‑intelligence workloads.
When asked whether the inevitable commoditisation of data would mirror the voice‑revenue collapse of the past decade, Taukobong replied that Telkom’s exposure to voice is relatively modest, meaning the shock‑absorption needed for a data‑price squeeze is already in place. “Data usage is the genuine growth engine for the next four to five years,” he said, adding that the company is “comfortable” with the trajectory because its data revenue already accounts for almost 60 % of group turnover.
Telkom data growth hinges on three distinct engines
The CEO identified three synergistic pillars that together form the backbone of Telkom’s data‑growth narrative:
| Engine | Primary Driver | Contribution to Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Wholesale (Openserve) | Enterprise demand for high‑capacity connectivity | First revenue increase in nine years (+2.3 %) |
| Carrier (Mobile & Fixed) | Consumer shift from voice to data‑heavy services | Mobile data subs rose 31.1 % to ~20 million |
| Artificial Intelligence | AI models and edge computing needing massive bandwidth | Anticipated “bigger pipes” to transport AI traffic |
The table shows how each pillar not only adds a separate revenue stream but also reinforces the others – for example, enterprise‑grade wholesale capacity feeds the AI use cases that, in turn, drive higher carrier traffic.
Telkom’s strategy diverges sharply from the more mobile‑centric roadmaps pursued by MTN and Vodacom. While the latter two have leaned heavily on fintech and, more recently, on proprietary data‑centre investments, Telkom is positioning itself as the transport layer that will carry the flood of AI‑generated data across its network. As Taukobong put it, “as you move up the solution stack to AI, that consumes a lot of data … and that’s where the bigger pipes start to come in.”
The emphasis on the “total data consumption” narrative is reflected in the company’s latest financials. For the year ended 31 March 2026, Telkom reported a 7.6 % rise in data revenue to R26.6 billion, pushing the metric close to the 60 % mark of overall group revenue. Group turnover itself nudged up 1.4 % to R44.48 billion, indicating that the modest top‑line growth is being driven almost entirely by data‑related streams.
South Africa’s telecom landscape is at a crossroads. Voice has already been stripped of its premium status, relegated to bundled minutes and over‑the‑top messaging apps. Industry analysts warn that data pricing will follow a similar downward trajectory as network capacity expands and per‑megabyte costs fall. Telkom’s bet is that by diversifying the sources of data traffic – from traditional broadband to AI workloads – it can stay ahead of the price‑erosion curve.
Vodacom and MTN, for their part, have rolled out financial‑services platforms and are pumping capital into AI‑focused edge sites and data‑centre clusters. Their strategy leans more toward compute‑side investments, aiming to monetise the processing power needed for AI rather than the transport capacity. Telkom, however, sees a larger upside in owning the pipes that move that data, a viewpoint that aligns with its extensive fixed‑line and wholesale infrastructure.
The broader market implications are clear: operators that only chase mobile data subscriptions risk hitting a growth ceiling once usage stabilises and pricing drops. Those that can leverage the full spectrum of data traffic – from household broadband to enterprise wholesale contracts and AI‑driven services – will be better positioned to sustain revenue momentum.
In practice, Telkom is already translating the three‑engine model into tangible projects. Openserve’s recent rollout of 10 Gbps fibre corridors in key economic hubs has attracted a wave of corporate clients seeking ultra‑low‑latency links for cloud and AI applications. On the carrier side, the company has accelerated its 5G deployment, prioritising high‑capacity “airport‑style” cells that can support massive IoT and AI edge workloads. Meanwhile, a partnership with a local AI start‑up aims to pilot a sovereign AI data‑hub that will route domestic machine‑learning traffic through Telkom’s own backbone, reducing reliance on overseas bandwidth.
These moves underscore the CEO’s confidence that data will remain the primary growth lever for Telkom well beyond the next half‑decade. By embracing a holistic view of data consumption, the group hopes to outpace the commoditisation that is already reshaping the telecom landscape in South Africa. If the strategy holds, Telkom could set a new benchmark for how legacy operators reinvent themselves in an AI‑first world.