Telkom (South Africa)
telecommunications provider in South Africa
Telkom (officially Telkom SA SOC Limited) is a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, operating in more than 38 countries across the African continent. Headquartered in Centurion, Gauteng, Telkom is one of South Africa's largest telecommunications companies by annual revenue.
Telkom is listed on the JSE Limited; South Africa's main stock exchange. As of 2024, the company had a market capitalization of R15.3 billion, and employed around 10,000 individuals.
History
The first use of telecommunication in South Africa happened in April 1860 was a single line telegraph connecting Cape Town and Simonstown. In 1879, the first undersea links were introduced, first connecting Durban and Europe. In the 1960s, South Africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28,800. Telkom emerged in 1991 from the South African Department of Post and Telecommunications (SAPT), the former postal and telecommunications service provider. The Post Office Amendment Act 1991 split the department into the Postal Service (SAPO) and the Telecommunications Service (Telkom).
In 1994, South Africa launched its mobile operations, underwritten by Telkom in partnership with Vodafone.
“Telkom (South Africa)” enters the record as telecommunications provider in South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Telkom, South and Africa can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Telkom (South Africa)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Telkom, South and Africa provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1818970. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1860, 1879 and 1991.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Telkom (South Africa)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.