Vodacom has set aside just more than R435m for investment in the northern Gauteng area in the current financial year to end-March 2026.
SA’s largest mobile provider will target critical infrastructure upgrades, new site deployments and “advanced technology rollouts to meet growing customer demand and support economic growth” in a region that spans both the North West province and Tshwane municipality.
The company invests billions of rand in capital expenditure locally each year, usually to build, update and maintain its network infrastructure across SA. With a budget set at group level, Vodacom then does the work at country, province, district, town and city level.
For the year to end-March, the group spent R11.6bn on its network in SA, with an expectation to reach R12bn in the 2026 financial year. Rival MTN expects to spend up to R6.8bn in SA for its financial year to end-December.
For the 2025/26 period, Vodacom’s investment in the Northern Gauteng Area (NGA) will include more than 190 new 5G sites, together with new 4G upgrades including enhancing coverage through new 700MHz radio equipment.
As part of the capital expenditure, Vodacom will also deploy new sites into underserved areas and provide broadband connectivity for the first time to areas like Ikagaleng township near Zeerust, which the company said enables “critical educational platforms and connectivity to the community”.
The company said it was working on ways to increase data usage in the region by pushing down its cost and providing options for cheap smartphones.
Amid declining voice and SMS revenue, operators are battling to increase network usage because smartphones are out of reach for many South Africans. Making devices more accessible is good for consumers and can increase the number of customers mobile providers have as well as the volume of data services that flow through their networks, ultimately adding to their profit.
In the current environment, this increased network usage helps to claw back and justify spending on network upgrades.
“This investment reflects Vodacom’s unwavering commitment to empowering communities through connectivity. By expanding and modernising our network across NGA, we’re enabling access to digital services, education, healthcare and economic opportunities for millions of South Africans,” said Christo de Wet, managing executive for the northern Gauteng region.
In August, Vodacom said it had earmarked more than R400m to build and maintain its network in its central region, which includes the Free State and Northern Cape, during this financial year.
Earlier in the same month, it announced a series of targeted network upgrades in the Addo region and along the R335, which connects Nelson Mandela Bay to KwaNojoli (Somerset East), to help curb truck hijackings in the Eastern Cape. The move forms part of the company’s R500m network investment earmarked for the province during this financial year.
Vodacom said recently it would invest R620m to improve connectivity in deep rural areas and townships in Mpumalanga in the financial year. In 2024/25, the company invested more than R400m in the region.
Elsewhere, Vodacom has earmarked about R100m to build 106 new base station sites in deep rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal.
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