{"id":219805,"date":"2018-01-18T07:15:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T05:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=219805"},"modified":"2018-01-18T07:16:09","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T05:16:09","slug":"cell-c-targets-acquisitions-to-add-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/219805\/cell-c-targets-acquisitions-to-add-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Cell C targets acquisitions to add services"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Cell C is seeking acquisitions that will help transform South Africa\u2019s third-biggest mobile-phone company into a full-service telecommunications provider offering internet and financial services as well as traditional calls and texts.<\/p>\n

The wireless carrier is working on two fibre-to-the-home deals and is looking at other targets in markets such as insurance, Chief Executive Officer Jose dos Santos, 54, said in an interview at Bloomberg\u2019s Johannesburg office. The expansion will kick-start a new phase of development for Cell C after the company reduced debt by more than 70 percent in a recapitalization by Blue Label Telecoms Ltd. last year,\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the process of doing the right acquisitions and partnerships to be able to provide everything from content, insurance, and possibly even financial services that all goes along with well-priced data and broadband services,\u201d said Dos Santos, who wore a blazer and a candy-pink striped shirt. \u201cWe want to start generating different revenue streams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dos Santos\u2019s plans may help Johannesburg-based Cell C come out of the shadow of Vodacom Group and MTN Group South Africa\u2019s two dominant mobile-phone companies. Having been mired in ownership talks for two years, Cell C\u2019s subscriber numbers sit at about 16 million, compared with more than 40 million for Vodacom, the country\u2019s market leader.<\/p>\n

Online Streaming<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCell C\u2019s biggest problem was that they did not move quickly enough to become net profit positive,\u201d Dobek Pater, managing partner of Africa Analysis, said by phone. The recapitalization may enable the company to add more revenue streams and potentially find a new strategic or equity partner, he said.<\/p>\n

South Africans living in cities including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban have been able to subscribe to fibre broadband since new companies including Vumatel and Vox Telecom entered the market from 2015. That\u2019s increased both capacity and internet speeds and enabled telecommunications companies to introduce new services such as video-on-demand.<\/p>\n

While fibre currently runs to about 500,000 South African homes, it is estimated that less than 30% of households have signed up for fibre services, according to Dos Santos.<\/p>\n

In November, Cell C launched Black, an online streaming platform that the company expects to challenge more established providers, including Naspers units Multichoice and Showmax and Netflix Inc. The company plans to add more channels including some showing live sport, and will consider bidding for related contracts such as English Premier League matches, Dos Santos said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could have done a partnership but we wanted our own content,\u201d said the CEO. Black can be played on any device and customers can use airtime to purchase content, a first in South Africa, he said. Customers also have the option to do a daily, weekly or monthly subscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into 2018, we want to be able to offer you unlimited voice, fibre to your home, content and then maybe lets add on that insurance on your household goods and car, and so on,\u201d Dos Santos said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: South Africa\u2019s best mobile network: Vodacom vs MTN vs Cell C vs Telkom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cell C is seeking acquisitions that will help transform South Africa\u2019s third-biggest mobile-phone company into a full-service telecommunications provider offering internet and financial services as well as traditional calls and texts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":118991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,28,27],"class_list":["post-219805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219805","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219807,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219805\/revisions\/219807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}