Knott-Craig not giving Pieter Uys sleepless nights
Vodacom CEO, Pieter Uys says that the South African mobile market is very competitive, and that Cell C CEO, Alan Knott-Craig is merely one of the competitive forces in the market.
Speaking to Moneyweb’s Alec Hogg, Uys said that Vodacom has seen a lot of competition in the last 18 months in the market “and that’s why prices have come down. So I wouldn’t just say Alan, I would say there’s good competition in the market full stop,” said Uys.
“Competition is always good for everybody, it keeps you on your toes and it makes sure that you get the best services, best products into the market at the best prices.”
Data a big growth area
Over the last year, Vodacom has seen a significant growth in data revenue, and Uys expects to see this trend continuing.
“We have budgeted that data will continue to grow at double digits versus always growing down in the lower single digits,” Uys said.
“We are continuing to build data networks [and] 3G networks outside South Africa. In South Africa population coverage is not at 100%, so there are big areas of the country that still needs to be covered, and hopefully we can find better ways and more efficient ways of covering it more quickly,” continued Uys.
“Spectrum is always a big thing, so we’d also like a resolution to the whole spectrum debate that’s been going on for quite a long time – so that we can quickly get to a position where everybody in the country, wherever they are, can have access to affordable broadband, through affordable devices from wherever they live and work.”
Uys explained that consumers can currently purchase mobile data bundles which offer data at less than 10c per MB, making mobile broadband very affordable.
Cell C’s bold moves
The latest move by Cell C’s new CEO sees the mobile operator slashing international call rates down to 99c per minute with per second billing, for a promotional period (30 May – 31 August 2012).
“We wanted to give our customers a simple, attractive, high quality international voice rate. Simple insofar as it applies to fixed and mobile networks in the various countries, and is at our landmark 99c per minute rate on per second billing,” said Alan Knott-Craig.
According to Cell C, the promotional rate is an effective 91% reduction in Cell C’s call rates to the UK, USA, China, India and Pakistan and represents a 72% saving when compared to the rates offered by its competitors in the mobile market.
Should the promotion prove to be a success with it customers, Cell C will notify ICASA about its intentions to make the tariff decrease permanent. Cell C will also add another 16 countries at 99c per minute on per second billing on 1 July 2012, according to Knott-Craig.
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