Telkom has appointed Beauty Apleni to head its Openserve business, filling the key leadership role at one of SA’s largest fibre network operator.
This week, the state affiliated group announced the Apleni appointment with effect from July 1, with the aim to drive the continuing growth and adoption of Openserve’s fibre network as part of Telkom’s data-led connectivity strategy.
Executive changes
The announcement comes after former CEO Althon Beukes stepped down from his role about six months ago, having been with the company for 30 years.
Selby Khuzwayo, another Telkom veteran, has been running the business as interim CEO since Beukes’ departure.
Apleni has more than 25 years of experience in the ICT industry with 15 years of that in executive leadership specialising in formulating strategy, driving execution and operational excellence.
She has held various roles at Telkom, such as Telkom Consumer’s chief of sales and technology, as well as chief technology and information officer in the same unit. She has been an executive for service delivery and solution design at Cybernest, and executive for IT outsource services in the same unit. Most recently, Apleni was serving as chief of staff, strategy and mergers & acquisitions at Telkom Group.
She holds a bachelor of science in computer science from Nelson Mandela University and has completed qualifications in management, strategy and leadership.
Fibre performance
Telkom has positioned itself as an infrastructure company, providing capability to its own operations, while serving the wider industry with connectivity, particularly through fibre.
Openserve improved its fibre to the home (FTTH) connectivity rate in the 12 months to end-March to 50.4%, which the group says is the highest in the market. The unit continued to push its fibre rollout, increasing homes passed by 13.3% to 1.38-million, and a 17.6% increase in homes connected.
“Homes passed” is a measure used in the fibre industry to denote the number of potential customers a company has access to by virtue of its service being available in an area.
Estimates indicate that more than 3-million SA homes are presently passed for fibre out of a potential 17-million.
Openserve’s revenue decreased by 1.3% from the prior year to R12.35bn, affected by the ongoing declines in fixed-voice, interconnection services and legacy data revenue of 25.4% or R732m. The company say these declines were largely offset by the growth of the fibre portfolio.
The unit’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) grew 1.8% to R4bn in the period.
The group said its efforts around network simplification and energy transformation reduced operating costs, and ongoing investment in the fibre network delivered capital intensity of 20.5%.
Openserve is one of SA’s biggest wholesale infrastructure connectivity providers and the country’s largest open-access network.
Overall, Telkom reported group revenue was up 3.3% to R43.88bn due to strong growth in mobile service revenue, which rose 10.2%, and fibre-related data revenue, which was 10% higher. Profit for the year surged to R7.5bn from R1.88bn a year ago.
Telkom group CEO Serame Taukobong said Apleni’s appointment reinforced the company’s commitment to leadership continuity, a robust succession planning framework and dedication to developing exceptional talent from within.
“Beauty’s experience and strong knowledge of our businesses, M&A and ICT industry place her in an excellent position to lead the growth and sustainability of Openserve going forward. I have no doubt she will make a valuable contribution to sustaining the wave of momentum and driving the group forward in a complex operating environment,” he said.
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