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Johannesburg - Vodacom [JSE:VOD] was in the spotlight on the JSE on Thursday, after the mobile company said its first-quarter revenue increased 7% as data sales from international operations helped ease pressure on growth in its domestic market.
The share gained 3.5% in morning trade to R141.06, after more than 2.27 million shares changed hands in more than 3 000 transactions valued at R318m. Vodacom was the second busiest share in terms of value after Standard Bank [JSE:SBK], with 2.2 million shares sold for R339m..
This performance helped the All-share index to recover some the previous session's losses and the index was at midday back above the 52 000-level. All the major indices were higher.
Vodacom said sales rose to R19.6bn in the three months through June. Data revenue increased 35% to R4.8bn. The increased data traffic, in South Africa and the international operations, was made possible by investment of R2.4bn in the network this quarter.
The group, which is 65% owned by Vodafone, is expanding in sub-Saharan Africa to counter regulatory pressure on sales growth in South Africa, where it’s the market leader in terms of subscriber numbers.
Vodacom’s share price is now 4.87% higher over the past 90 days and 7.58% over the past year.
The JSE’s stronger performance on Thursday was not a surprise, as technical analysts said that Wednesday's profittaking, with the All-share losing 1.71%, was slightly overdone.
The All-share index was 0.46% stronger on 52 249 points and the Top 40-index traded 0.49% stronger on 46 635 points.
Imara SP Reid in its daily market snapshot said if the Top 40 can hold above 46 140 points in the next day or two, some improvement should actually emerge.
The Financial index, which is waiting for news on local interest rates later on Thursday, was 0.41% higher.
Standard Bank gained 1.07% to R153.90. It is however drifting sideways for almost a year now, as the price is only 3.18% higher for the year, while it lost 1.11% over the past ninety days.
There was also brisk trade in the shares of MTN [JSE:MTN], Vodacom’s biggest competitor, but the share price was only 0.33% higher on R215.97.
The attention in the retail sector shifted to Truworths [JSE:TRU], with more than 2 million shares traded for R177.3m. The share price was however 0.68% lower on R87.10.
Woolworths [JSE:WHL] gained 1.23% to R98.25, bringing the share price again within reach of the 52-week high of R99.55 set last month.
The Industrial index gained 0.61% with Naspers [JSE:NPN] 0.54% higher on R1 886.30, but SABMiller [JSE:SAB] lost 0.28% to R661.17.
Even the Resources sector recovered after losing 3.83% on Wednesday. But the big dual-listed resources shares are still struggling. Glencore [JSE:GLN], the busiest share on Thursday in terms of volume, lost 2.35% to R43.64. BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] was 0.57% softer on R228.00.
Anglo American’s [JSE:AGL] share price was very volatile. The share price reached a new intraday 52-week low of R156.70, but recovered to trade 0.26% higher on R188.50, just above the 52-week low of R158.24.
