Capitec Connect’s earnings increase 7,000% from R4 million to R284 million in three years

Capitec Connect has seen exponential growth in just a few years since its launch, steadily increasing its contribution to Capitec’s overall earnings.

Launched in September 2022, Capitec Connect has quickly become the largest player in South Africa’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) market.

In its latest set of interim results, the financial services group reported Capitec Connect’s net income at R284 million for the six-month period ending 31 August 2026.

This is a substantial increase compared with three years ago, when Capitec Connect’s net income for the six months ended 31 August 2023 was exactly R4 million, one year after launch.

Capitec’s overall net non-interest income for the six months sat at R16.11 billion, with Capitec Connect contributing 1.8% of this total.

In three years, Capitec Connect grew its net income by 7,000% and is widely expected to continue this strong growth trend.

The R284 million generated by Capitec Connect over the last six months is equivalent to almost two-thirds of the R442 million it generated during Capitec’s last full financial year.

At its current pace, Capitec Connect is on track to bring in a net income closer to R600 million for the full 2026/27 financial year.

Additionally, Capitec Connect’s active 3-month subscriber base had reached 1.8 million by the end of August 2026, double the amount of active customers it had three years ago.

“Capitec Connect continued to scale as more clients used the product for affordable everyday connectivity,” Capitec said in its latest set of results.

“Growth was supported by increased numbers of active clients and higher usage across both data and voice services.”

Earlier this year, Capitec introduced free Capitec-to-Capitec voice calls, logging 70 million minutes of free calls during the period ending August 2026.

It should be noted that the R4 million net income generated by Capitec Connect at the end of August 2023 was likely offset by higher operating costs as it was still in its initial set-up phase.

Not competing with telcos

Despite the rapid growth Capitec Connect has seen in just a few short years, its leadership has maintained that it never intended to outright compete with established mobile network providers.

Instead, Capitec Connect has said its focus remains on supporting existing Capitec customers and providing them with more value.

In an interview with ITWeb from June 2025, Capitec Connect executive head Dr Dalene Steyn said the business was launched to provide their customers with an alternative to MTN or Vodacom.

“We felt that the big telcos were exploiting our customers and charging really exorbitant prices for data,” Steyn said. “It was also really confusing.”

“It wasn’t conforming to our fundamentals of being simplistic, affordable and accessible. We decided to launch an MVNO to really give back to our clients and enable them to live better.”

At the time of the interview, Steyn said Capitec Connect had reached a total subscriber base of 1.7 million, while Capitec as a whole had 24 million clients.

Steyn said at the time that the business’s ultimate goal was for every Capitec client to have a Capitec Connect SIM card.

To achieve this, she said Capitec Connect would increasingly target Capitec clients who were already using the bank’s services to purchase airtime.

“We’ve got 12 million Capitec clients that buy airtime from us every single month,” Steyn said. “Capitec is the biggest seller of airtime in South Africa.”

“41% of all airtime in South Africa is bought from Capitec, mostly through our app. We know exactly who those clients are and what they are buying, so those are the clients we will be targeting.”

Steyn said Capitec Connect would primarily focus on converting these airtime buyers away from other mobile networks towards its own SIM cards.

She also said the company had no short-term plans to expand Capitec Connect to the rest of the country, as it is currently exclusive to Capitec clients.