Data revenue for South Africa-based mobile telecommunications company MTN increased 36.9 percent through June, according to a report in BizTechAfrica.

Overall revenue increased 9.8 percent to $6.5 million.

“During the period, data services were the key driver of MTN’s revenue growth,” the company reported. “Our operations in South Africa and Nigeria were the biggest contributors to data revenue growth, whilst those in Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Benin also delivered a strong performance.”

MTN is a South Africa-based multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African, European and Middle Eastern countries.

Data subscriber numbers grew by 29.5 percent to 65.4 million and data traffic grew by 55.7 percent, the company reported. “This was achieved through extending our 3G coverage as well as through the increased number of data-enabled devices, which have reached 122.2 million. Our network has 31.6 million smartphones in use and increasing smartphone penetration remains an important objective.”

Telecommunications companies, and mobile networks in particular, frequently disclose the proportion of their revenues that come from carrying data rather than voice traffic, according to moneyterms.co.uk. This does have an impact on margins and growth prospects, but the impact is not straightforward and extrapolating from this data is not easy.