Neotel avoids mobile

By Damaria Senne for Neotel

Johannesburg, 19 Nov 2007

Second national operator Neotel has no plans to play in the mobile service provider space, says MD Ajay Pandey.

Speaking at the launch of Neotel`s enterprise solutions, in Fourways last week, Pandey said the company is positioning itself as SA`s first converged network service provider. It will provide voice, data and Internet services from a single network, he noted.

Neotel executive head of strategy Angus Hay explained: "In a market such as SA, with three competing mobile operators, there is limited opportunity for yet another mobile operator in the conventional sense, just as the opportunity for a conventional fixed voice operator is reducing."

Market watchers support this view, previously stating that the local mobile market is approaching saturation.

Vodacom said today in its six-month interim group results that SA has an 87% mobile phone penetration level.

"After a clean-up of the inactive prepaid customer base, we now have a realistic industry total of approximately 42 million live SIM cards in SA, which is a cellphone penetration of 87% of the population," said Vodacom CEO Knott-Craig.

Vodacom said it had 23.3 million subscribers by the end of September. Last month, MTN said it had 14.076 million subscribers, while Cell C previously said it has 3.4 million active subscribers.