Capitec Connect, the bank’s mobile network, earned R284m in net income in the six months to 31 August 2026, up 72% on a year earlier. In the same period three years ago, a year after its September 2022 launch, it earned R4m.
The unit now accounts for about 1.8% of Capitec’s R16.1bn in net non-interest income. Its first-half earnings already equal almost two-thirds of the R442m it made in the full year to February 2026. At this pace, full-year net income could approach R600m.
Active subscribers, measured as SIM cards used in the past three months, rose 64% to 1.8m from 1.1m. Data use more than doubled to about 34m gigabytes, and voice minutes rose 84% to 573m. Capitec said growth came from more active clients and heavier use of both data and voice.
| Period | Net income | Active subscribers |
|---|---|---|
| Six months to Aug 2023 | R4m | Not disclosed |
| Year to Feb 2025 | R193m | 0.9m |
| Six months to Aug 2025 | About R165m (implied) | 1.1m |
| Year to Feb 2026 | R442m | 1.5m |
| Six months to Aug 2026 | R284m | 1.8m |
Capitec Connect is the country’s largest mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). It does not own network infrastructure and instead runs on Cell C’s network, which also hosts FNB Connect. The service is available only to Capitec clients. Earlier this year Capitec introduced free calls between Capitec Connect users, which logged 70m minutes during the period, and it has started selling devices on credit.
The unit’s growth comes from the bank’s role in airtime sales. In a June 2025 interview with ITWeb, Capitec Connect executive head Dalene Steyn said about 12m Capitec clients bought airtime through the bank every month. She said Capitec accounted for about 41% of all airtime bought in South Africa, mostly through its app. Steyn said the strategy was to move those buyers onto Capitec SIM cards, with the long-term aim of every client using one. She said the bank launched the service because clients faced high and confusing data prices from the large networks, and that it did not plan to open the service to non-clients in the short term.
The mobile business sits within Capitec’s fintech division, which also includes value-added services such as prepaid electricity, vouchers and betting top-ups. Fintech income rose 32% to R3.8bn in the half. The division contributed R2.7bn, or 29%, of group headline earnings, up from R2.1bn a year earlier. Capitec Connect began making a positive contribution to group earnings in the 2024 financial year.
Group headline earnings rose 19% to R9.5bn, with a 31% return on equity. Active clients grew 7% to 26.6m. The interim dividend was raised 19% to 3,110 cents a share. Net non-interest income grew 21%, faster than net interest income, which rose 7% to R12.7bn. Non-interest income now accounts for 70% of operating income, a sign of how far Capitec has moved beyond lending.
The scale gap with the networks remains wide. Cell C, the smallest of the four mobile operators, reported about 8.8m subscribers in its most recent results. With 26.6m active banking clients, Capitec has a large pool of potential mobile users it has yet to convert.