MTN’s South African subscriber base is 16.4 million, Vodacom claims 27.1 million customers, and Cell C has roughly 6.5 million. This brings the total claimed South African cell phone subscriber base to 50 million, more than the total population of South Africa, 49.1 million. (mtn-investor.com, Vodacom News Release 2 Feb 2010, www.ogertelecom.com, LFS 2009Q3)
This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA
Related facts:
- vodacom4me The average revenue per user (ARPU) of Vodacom customers is R140...
- That’s not AYOBA! MTN’s South African subscriber base was 16.1 million at the end...
- small, but Catching up Cell C grew its subscriber base by 46% over the 2008/9...
- Pay up 13% of all cellphone users have a contract. The network provider...
- Every second counts Vodacom says it has 26.45 million South African subscribers. The...
The real question here is how many RICA Clients do they each have ?
Pay as U go clients have more than one simm and with each new sales/marketing drive e.g. 46664 simm and the cellc Hola 7 AND SUCH MAKES PEOPLE go in pick up a simm not out of loyalty or great service but the R5 free airtime – Which of these remain active after the special anyones guess but I bet no one will say. But they do claim the numbers.
How can this be? It must be in the definition of a subscriber.
Vodacom’s total reflects “customers registered on Vodacom’s network, which have not been disconnected, including inactive customers.”
MTN says “subscribers are customers who have participated in a revenue generating activity in the last 90 days.”
There are people who have sim cards form all 3 networks and yes they do still account for registered numbers that may not be in use anymore. Perhaps the stats will change a little once everyone is registered with RICA
The figure includes the sim cards used on 3G modems. In my house we have four active sim cards from one provider. So it is possible that the figure may be correct.
The AMPS 2009A survey (a national survey of South African consumers, aged 16+) gives the following subscriber numbers in response to the question: “And to which network is this cellphone linked?”
You can get online access to AMPS2009 at http://www.eighty20.co.za/fp
… and 0.7 million customers for Virgin Mobile.
As I understand it, Vodacom has a loose definition of ‘inactive’ – translates to about 7 months of inactivity before not being counted. RICA kicked off around August, so I guess around March, you should see Vodacom’s base size shrinking dramatically.
“I” have various contracts with different service providers- not one of which is in my own name- all are through different companies/C.C’S/ETC
Although there are reasons to believe that the cell figures claimed may be a little inflated, there is more reason to believe the population figures are also very suspect. In June 1996, my son was shown that our country’s population stood at 57 million. After the 2001 National census, after not a single one of our personal families’ and friends’ homes were called on in different towns and provinces, the population claimed was 16 million less than my son was shown in June of 1996. Many serious cover-ups and fictitious facts will be exposed in 2010 regarding vital issues in the new South Africa.
The official population estimates for South Africa, from StatsSA
Have you got a source for your 57 million figure?
What about the fifteen million legal/illegal immigrants?