{"id":13182,"date":"2012-05-30T00:43:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T22:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=13182"},"modified":"2012-05-30T00:45:47","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T22:45:47","slug":"knott-craig-not-giving-pieter-uys-sleepless-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/13182\/knott-craig-not-giving-pieter-uys-sleepless-nights\/","title":{"rendered":"Knott-Craig not giving Pieter Uys sleepless nights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom<\/a> CEO, Pieter Uys<\/a> says that the South African mobile market is very competitive, and that Cell C<\/a> CEO, Alan Knott-Craig<\/a> is merely one of the competitive forces in the market.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Moneyweb\u2019s Alec Hogg<\/a>, Uys said that Vodacom has seen a lot of competition in the last 18 months in the market \u201cand that\u2019s why prices have come down. So I wouldn\u2019t just say Alan, I would say there\u2019s good competition in the market full stop,\u201d said Uys.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetition 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.”<\/p>\n

Data a big growth area<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the last year, Vodacom has seen a significant growth in data revenue, and Uys expects to see this trend continuing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have budgeted that data will continue to grow at double digits versus always growing down in the lower single digits,\u201d Uys said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are continuing to build data networks [and] 3G<\/a> 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,\u201d continued Uys.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpectrum is always a big thing, so we\u2019d also like a resolution to the whole spectrum debate that\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uys explained that consumers can currently purchase mobile data bundles which offer data at less than 10c per MB, making mobile broadband very affordable.<\/p>\n

Cell C’s bold moves<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest move by Cell C’s new CEO sees the mobile operator slashing international call rates down\u00a0to 99c per minute with per second billing, for a promotional period (30 May – 31 August 2012).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d said Alan Knott-Craig<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Cell C, the promotional rate is an effective 91% reduction in Cell C\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buckle up for mobile price war<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN laughs off Vodacom, Cell C prepaid price cuts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C slashes prepaid voice and data prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom cuts prepaid call rates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C looking for 3G roaming partner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys says that there\u2019s good competition in the South African mobile market, which involves more than just Cell C<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[43,42,26,87,27],"class_list":["post-13182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-pieter-uys","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13182"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13266,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182\/revisions\/13266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}