Vodacom announces an investment of ZAR50 billion ($3.4 billion) in its South African market in the five coming years. This was announced during the investment conference hosted by South Africa on October 25-27, 2018 in Johannesburg.

The conference was one of the initiatives of the new president Cyril Ramaphosa to attract $100 billion of Foreign Direct Investments.

Vodacom’s investment in its main mobile market where it is waging a tough competition against MTN should be done via modernization and extension of the network infrastructure. Vodacom plans to launch the 5G network but, it is being held back by restriction on access to new spectrums; a problem South Africa announced will be resolved by Q1, 2019.

For the telecom company which has already launched the 5G in Lesotho, the government’s promise seems sufficient to encourage it to prepare the financing thanks to which it can provide South Africans enhanced internet connection and new added-value services. Apart from modernizing the network, the fund should also help finance its extension to reach the largest population possible and fully capitalize on the high broadband internet.