{"id":131118,"date":"2016-07-22T14:31:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T12:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=131118"},"modified":"2016-07-22T14:31:36","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T12:31:36","slug":"the-market-loves-telkoms-massive-price-cuts-as-shares-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/131118\/the-market-loves-telkoms-massive-price-cuts-as-shares-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"The market loves Telkom&#8217;s massive price cuts as shares surge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The market reacted positively to Telkom&#8217;s disruptive contract packages &#8211; announced late Thursday evening &#8211; with shares up 4.20% in afternoon trade on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The telco launched its new FreeMe contract packages, which offer aggressive prices and simplify its product offering.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribers are able to select the amount of data they want, and then pay for off-network calls, while <a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/173002-telkom-will-let-you-switch-to-its-insane-new-packages-mid-contract.html\" target=\"_blank\">MyBroadband<\/a> reported that contract subscribers will also be able to switch to\u00a0 one of the new packages from an existing contract from 24 July.<\/p>\n<p>Shares in Telkom climbed R2.70, to R67.20 by 14h20 on Friday afternoon on the JSE.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, rival mobile operators declined, with Vodacom down 1.35%, or R2.24, to R163.96, while MTN lost 0.5% to R144.20.<\/p>\n<p>MTN <a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/130638\/nigeria-fine-deals-massive-blow-to-mtn\/\" target=\"_blank\">reported earlier this week<\/a> that a poor financial performance in Nigeria and South Africa \u2013 on top of a massive fine being imposed by the Nigerian government \u2013 will push the company&#8217;s headline earnings per share into the red.<\/p>\n<p>MTN said that expects to report negative basic headline earnings per share\u00a0(HEPS) and basic earnings per share (EPS) for its half-year results for\u00a02016, compared to the\u00a0reported HEPS\u00a0of 654 cents and EPS of 653 cents in the year prior.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Details of the new FreeMe contract packages:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Each contract includes free calls and messaging on WhatsApp, BBM, and Viber, as well as free on-network calls and 50 free SMS messages per day.<\/p>\n<p>The contracts are priced as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1GB: <strong>R99<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>2GB: <strong>R149<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>5GB: <strong>R299<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>10GB: <strong>R399<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>20GB: <strong>R599<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Unlimited: <strong>R999<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prepaid subscribers will be able to buy these\u00a0packages as monthly bundles at the same price.<\/p>\n<p>The free messages and calling on WhatsApp, BBM, and Viber are limited to 2GB of usage per month.<\/p>\n<p>Free calls to Telkom Mobile and Telkom fixed-line numbers have a fair usage limit of 3,000 minutes per month.<\/p>\n<p>The 20GB and Unlimited packages include free calls to other network operators, limited to 1,500 and 3,000 minutes per month respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Out-of-bundle and top-up rates on FreeMe contracts are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Voice:<\/strong> R0.69 per minute, billed per second.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Data:<\/strong> R0.29 per MB.<\/li>\n<li><strong>SMS:<\/strong> R0.30 per message.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The contracts will be available from 25 July.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Telkom-FreeMe-prices.jpg\" data-slb-active=\"1\" data-slb-asset=\"140098696\" data-slb-internal=\"0\" data-slb-group=\"130974\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-new-size wp-image-130976\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Telkom-FreeMe-prices-640x419.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Telkom-FreeMe-prices.jpg 640w, http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Telkom-FreeMe-prices-300x196.jpg 300w\" alt=\"Telkom FreeMe prices\" width=\"640\" height=\"419\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on mobile<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/130974\/telkom-has-just-made-a-massive-mobile-play\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Telkom has just made a massive mobile play \u2013 free calls<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Absa launches new online banking site and mobile banking app\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/130550\/absa-launches-new-website-and-banking-app\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Absa launches new online banking site and mobile banking app<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to No plans to block mobile ads in SA\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/software\/124669\/no-plans-to-block-mobile-ads-in-sa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">No plans to block mobile ads in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Telkom Mobile nears break-even point\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/94815\/telkom-mobile-nears-break-even-point\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Telkom Mobile nears break-even point<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The market reacted positively to Telkom&#8217;s disruptive contract packages &#8211; announced late Thursday evening &#8211; with shares up 4.20% in afternoon trade on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":73638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,65],"class_list":["post-131118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131130,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131118\/revisions\/131130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}