{"id":26392,"date":"2012-11-13T16:25:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T14:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=26392"},"modified":"2012-11-14T09:21:04","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T07:21:04","slug":"mtn-and-vodacom-continue-record-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/26392\/mtn-and-vodacom-continue-record-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN and Vodacom continue record surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile operators Vodacom<\/a> and MTN<\/a> surged to record levels in afternoon trade on the JSE following recent trading reports which have pleased analysts, and assuaged their concerns over a rising threat from rival operator Cell C<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By 16h00 on Tuesday (13 November 2012), shares in MTN advanced 1.48%, or R2.49, to R170.89 on the local bourse, giving the group a market cap of R321.87 billion. Shares in MTN Group are up from a one year worst figure of R127 in April, which was due to concerns over its legal battle with Turkcell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Vodacom advanced 2.15%, or R2.50, to R118.89, adding to a gain of 4.95% on Monday (12 November) following a report on its half year results in which it lifted its interim dividend per share by 36.5%, to 355 cents. The group’s market cap moved to R176.9 billion and its shares are up close on 30% for the year, in line with MTN.<\/p>\n

An analyst at Macquarie\u00a0First South<\/a> said that the telecoms sector \u201cis pretty hot at the moment\u201d aside from Telkom<\/a>, for reasons already well-documented.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing\u00a0a solid performance posted by Vodacom yesterday, investors seem to be less worried about the threat posed by Cell C,\u201d he said, adding that it was difficult to tell how well-priced both companies were. \u201cIn my view, both are priced to perfection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nadim Mohamed<\/a>, investment analyst & partner at First Avenue Investment Management<\/a>, said that one of the reasons for the recent strength in MTN is due to the recent quarterly update where the group raised its subscriber forecast for the financial year – which was a surprise.<\/p>\n

On 25 October, MTN Group reported a healthy rise in its subscribers for the period ended September 2012, to 182.7 million across the 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

MTN CEO,\u00a0Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a>\u00a0said at the time that a solid operational performance over the quarter had enabled MTN to increase guidance for net additions for 2012 from 21.25 million, to 23.70 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the Turkcell law suit seems to have been put on hold for now.\u00a0The stock is starting to look fully valued at this level in our view,\u201d Mohammed said.<\/p>\n

Mohamed also said that Vodacom\u2019s share price traded similarly because \u201cwe have not yet seen any evidence of weakness in the local market as yet\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he warned that the effect of the recent price competition would mostly be felt in the next financial year.<\/p>\n

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

Cell C: \u201clet the fight begin\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C marches on in mobile data war<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN surges to record high<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN Group subscribers up to 182.7 million<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve cracked Africa model: Vodacom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom shares up 2.3% on H1 results<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

We have appetite to grow: Vodacom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom sees 8.4% rise in H1 revenue<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom and MTN surged to record levels in afternoon trade on the JSE following recent trading reports which assuaged analyst concerns over a rising threat from Cell C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,175,28,65,27],"class_list":["post-26392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-jse","tag-mtn","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392","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=26392"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26396,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions\/26396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}