Vodacom celebrates 30 Years of technology and innovation

24 Jul 2024Technology news

5 minute read

This year, our African subsidiary, Vodacom Group celebrates its 30th anniversary. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the huge contribution it has made to customers and communities all the way from Cape Town South Africa to Cairo Egypt over that period.

1993

Vodacom was awarded a licence to operate a GSM cellular network in South Africa. Vodacom Group provides over 45 million customers with mobile and fixed connectivity and financial services, and Internet of Thing (IoT) technology for businesses.

The name Vodacom derives from a conjunction of Voice and Data Communications.

1994

Vodacom launched mobile voice services, connecting 10,000 customers on the first day.

1995

Vodacom was awarded the licence to operate in Lesotho, the first country outside of South Africa. Otherwise known as the Kingdom of the Sky – the only independent state in the world lying entirely above 1,000 meters in elevation. To help achieve our goal of improving lives to create a more inclusive society through technology in Lesotho, Vodacom invested significantly in the roll-out of 4G connectivity and M-PESA.

Vodacom also sponsored South Africa’s national rugby team, the Springboks, which famously went on to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

1996

Vodacom launched Vodago, our first prepaid service, connecting 60,000 customers in the first month.

1998

Vodacom World opened. The first of its kind flagship retail mall in Johannesburg, South Africa. It showcased the latest telecom products and services from around the world. Vodacom World included a walk-in customer care environment – to take care of enquiries and repairs. To this date it remains Vodafone’s flagship mall.

2000

Vodacom launched in Tanzania, becoming the country’s largest network provider. The Vodacom network covers Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest point in the world to be covered by a GSM network.

2000

The Vodacom network reached 3 million customers at the millennium.

2002

Vodacom launched in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a surface area of over 2.34 million square kilometres, around the same as size as Western Europe, making it one of the most difficult countries to build mobile networks due to its challenging geography.

2003

Vodacom launched in Mozambique bordered by South Africa and Tanzania and has a long coastline stretching 2,500 kilometres along the Indian Ocean. Since launching, Vodacom have significantly improved the mobile and financial services usage in Mozambique.

2004

Vodacom introduced 3G in South Africa, providing increased data transmission speeds, and reached 10 million customers.

2006

Vodafone increased its shareholding in Vodacom to 50%.

2007

M-PESA launches the first payments platform in Africa. Starting in Kenya, and now also operational in Tanzania, Lesotho, Democratic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique with similar services in Egypt, and South Africa with a 52 million customer base. Today it is co-owned by Vodacom and Safaricom.

2008

Vodacom Business launched in South Africa, helping enterprise customers work smarter as they drive economic growth within the continent.

2009

Vodacom listed in South Africa on the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange).

Vodafone increased its shareholding to 65%.

2011

Vodacom officially rebranded, changing its logo colour from blue to red, matching Vodafone’s colour scheme.

2012

Vodacom was the first South African operator to launch a 4G network.

2013

Partnership with WWF-South Africa launched. Together Vodacom and WWF have worked on several projects aimed to help with the restoration and conservation of our natural landscape, oceans and animals.

2014

Vodacom created bursary programmes to support full-time undergraduate students in South Africa, Lesotho and the DRC. This has resulted in a total of 1,187 bursaries awarded to students in various subjects across different universities.

2017

Code Like a Girl is an initiative that contributes to building a more digital, inclusive, sustainable future in Africa, while tackling low representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education through a structured educational programme that targets underprivileged girls. Since its launch it has resulted in a total of almost 16,000 girls being trained across Africa.

2018

Vodacom Group acquired 34.95% of Safaricom in Kenya. One of Africa’s more economically mature countries and known for its beautiful landscapes and expansive nature reserves, home to lions, elephants and rhinos, which Vodacom support on preserving.

2019

Vodacom’s customer base reached 100 million and it launched the first 5G service in Africa, in Lesotho.

2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vodacom donated 20,000 smartphones, 100 terabytes of data and 10 million voice call minutes to South Africa’s National Department of Health.

Also, Vodacom partnered with Discovery Health to offer free online medical consultations in South Africa. The COVID-19 Healthcare Fund paid doctors for the first 100,000 consultations that were provided free to any South African. At the launch of the initiative, 5,200 doctors were signed up and trained.

Vodafone also launched ConnectU during the pandemic. Connect U is a platform designed to provide free access to information and life-changing online resources in South Africa, DRC and Mozambique. As of March 2024, there were 14.4 million unique ConnectU visitors across all 3 countries.

2021

The VodaPay Super App was launched in South Africa – it is a digital wallet allowing customers to instantly send money to friends and family members and make payment.

2022

In 2022, Vodacom acquired Vodafone Egypt from Vodafone Group meaning that the company now offers services right across the African continent. Vodafone Egypt plays an important role in supporting sustainable development across the country, which uses mobile technology to help more people access communication technologies.

Safaricom launched in Ethiopia, bringing telecoms competition to Africa’s second largest country for the first time. Vodacom are continually supporting Ethiopia to realise its economic and developmental potential through connectivity and digital services, to enable inclusive, sustainable digital society.