South Africa’s SA telecoms, Vodacom, MTN, and Cell C recently publicised their price increases of their call rates. Below is a review of the changes. For the past few months, all of SA telecoms made known to the public their price increases on some of their products.
The majority of these price increases were a shock to their subscribers especially regarding mobile data contracts who came as a surprise to subscribers and in the case of mobile data contracts who experienced this increase for the first time in history that prices were hiked. The change in the prices was owed to the changing economic environment that the country is going through such as a weaker currency and increased input costs.
Two of SA telecoms MTN and Vodacom cited Eskom’s load shedding as the key contributor to increased costs. The mobile companies said that they have had to invest in additional generators and back-up batteries to power base stations.
Here is an outline of the SA telecoms price increases in South Africa over the last few months.
Cell C contract changesCell C was the first company to make known its changes no its contract products. The mobile network operator also dropped its entire SmartChat product range. On 1 February 2015, the company hiked its Straight Up contract and top up package pricing by 10%. Its OOB voice rates on Straight Up plans were increased from 99c per minute to R1.05 per minute.
Vodacom contract price increases
On 1 May 2015 Vodacom hiked the subscription fees on particular contract price plans, which will affect voice and data customers. The new prices pertain Vodacom Smart, uChoose Smart, uChoose Flexi, Top Up, and Mobile Broadband packages.
MTN price increases
MTN said it will join Cell C and Vodacom in mounting the prices of many of its products, including existing contract packages.
MTN cited the rise in costs as the reason why it hiked its products.
Telkom line rental price increase
Telkom announced its home line rental prices will increase from R166 per month to R189 per month from 1 May 2015. Jacqui O’Sullivan, Telkom’s Managing Executive for Group Communication, said the pricing updates are part of Telkom’s rationalisation of products and services.