{"id":44164,"date":"2013-08-14T13:04:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T11:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44164"},"modified":"2015-01-23T14:04:38","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T12:04:38","slug":"mobile-subscribers-in-sa-whos-eating-whose-lunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/44164\/mobile-subscribers-in-sa-whos-eating-whose-lunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile subscribers in SA: who’s eating whose lunch?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past two years, mobile operators MTN and Vodacom have dominated the mobile services market – but as Cell C and Telkom Mobile continue to accrue customers, their gain appears to be the big players’ loss.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday (14 August), MTN reported a quarterly decline in its subscriber numbers in South Africa to 25 million.<\/p>\n

While the number is a reported decline, when assessing MTN’s subscriber figures year-on-year, the yellow network has shown growth: in September 2012, MTN’s subscriber base in SA stood at 24.5 million subscribers – half a million less than the current figure.<\/p>\n

However, despite YoY growth, MTN’s relative market share has seemingly decreased, as competitors boosted it’s numbers.<\/p>\n

MTN’s biggest rival, Vodacom – which still boasts the most mobile customers in the country – has also lost ground.<\/p>\n

In December 2011, Vodacom had close to 32 million customers on its network; since then, however, SA’s largest mobile operator has seen a decline in numbers to 29.3 million in its latest financial reporting.<\/p>\n

Smaller gets bigger<\/h3>\n

In contrast to the giants, in July 2013, Cell C revealed that it had 11.7 million subscribers on its network – a steady climb from 8.2 million users in 2011 and 9.4 million in 2012 – boosting its relative market share to over 17%, well in-line with the company’s strategic goals.<\/p>\n

When Alan Knott-Craig took over as Cell C CEO in April 2012 he said he wanted to grow the mobile operator\u2019s market share in South Africa to 25% within the next three years.<\/p>\n

Telkom Mobile (formerly known as 8ta) has also shown consistant growth in its active subscriber base – albeit with less vigor than Cell C.<\/p>\n

Since 2011, when its subscribers sat at 1.1 million, Telkom Mobile has boosted its users by half a million to 1.54 million as reported in its latest financial results.<\/p>\n

Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Virgin Mobile, has also reportedly seen an increase in subscribers over the years – albeit a relatively small one.<\/p>\n

According to Virgin Mobile South Africa CEO, Jonathan Marchbank, the MVNO currently has 500,000 subscribers – up from approximately 300,000 subscribers reported in 2011.<\/p>\n

\"SA<\/a>

SA Mobile Subscribers 2011-2013<\/p><\/div>\n

Market share winners and losers<\/h3>\n

Despite a loss in subscribers, and having both lost ground to their smaller competitors, Vodacom and MTN maintain a dominant share of the mobile market in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Market share calculations in the table below are based on available user number information from operators which release reports and presentations at different times.<\/p>\n

The table shows that latest known data reported between June and September, where applicable, and does not include the 120,000 Red Bull Mobile subscribers.<\/p>\n

Subscriber totals are greater than the total population of South Africa as mobile phone users may have multiple accounts on various networks, simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Subscribers (Millions) and Market Share<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Operator<\/strong><\/td>\n2011
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		Market Share
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		2012
\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n		Market Share<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n2013
\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n		Market Share<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MTN<\/td>\n20.9<\/td>\n33.6%<\/td>\n24.5<\/td>\n37.3%<\/span><\/td>\n25.0<\/td>\n36.8%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vodacom<\/td>\n31.7<\/td>\n50.9%<\/td>\n29.97<\/td>\n45.6%<\/span><\/td>\n29.28<\/td>\n43.0%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cell C<\/td>\n8.2<\/td>\n13.2%<\/td>\n9.4<\/td>\n14.3%<\/span><\/td>\n11.7<\/td>\n17.2%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telkom Mobile\/8ta<\/td>\n1.14<\/td>\n1.8%<\/td>\n1.48<\/td>\n2.2%<\/span><\/td>\n1.54<\/td>\n2.3%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Virgin Mobile<\/td>\n0.3<\/td>\n0.5%<\/td>\n0.4<\/td>\n06%<\/span><\/td>\n0.5<\/td>\n0.7%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total*<\/strong><\/td>\n62.24<\/strong><\/td>\n100%<\/strong><\/td>\n65.75<\/strong><\/td>\n100%<\/strong><\/td>\n68.02<\/strong><\/td>\n100%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

* Based on tabulated numbers<\/small><\/p>\n

\"Market<\/a>

Market share 2011 – 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

More on SA mobile operators<\/h3>\n

MTN continues to lose SA subscribers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s modest mobile numbers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom: the good and the not so good<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cell C sign-ups boom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Virgin Mobile CEO slates Vodacom, MTN for anticompetitive behaviour<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SA mobile subscriber numbers compared<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When looking at subscriber numbers over the past 2 years, Cell C and Telkom Mobile’s gain appears to be Vodacom and MTN’s loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":44170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,28,2634,1075,77,27],"class_list":["post-44164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-subscriber-numbers","tag-telkom-mobile","tag-virgin-mobile","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44164"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78133,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164\/revisions\/78133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}