SA's consumer segment seems to have warmed up to Neotel again, after the converged telecoms operator revised its prepaid and postpaid voice and data offerings.
The revised offer became necessary as the company reported it had missed its target of 50 000 subscribers by June this year. Consumers had also being putting pressure on Neotel, arguing the company was neglecting the consumer market in favour of its corporate and wholesale business.
On the back of these complaints, Neotel last month introduced a range of new offers, including identical voice tariffs for prepaid and postpaid packages, free evening and weekend on-network weekends, and a new entry-level data package for R99 per month.
The operator says the consumer response has been positive. “Our new offerings, both postpaid and prepaid, have received a very positive response from the market.
“Monthly enquiries have increased by 40% and monthly sales have increased by 20% from September to October, and are likely to increase further as the broadcast marketing campaign only started late October,” explains Neotel.
Establishing prepaid
The operator also recently unveiled a prepaid option to its consumers, but analysts criticised the offering, saying it was late to market and too costly.
Nonetheless, Neotel is confident its prepaid offering is on its way to being well established in the market.
At launch, Neotel offered prepaid vouchers of R100 denomination only. With the restructuring of its consumer offering, the company introduced R25, R50 and R200 denominations as well.
“Prepaid has established itself in a short period of time. More importantly, the sale of monthly recharge vouchers has doubled month-on-month from August till October. Our customer base is growing steadily,” it notes.
Neotel has also expanded its recharge distribution channel to include 300 Spar outlets and will soon also include 1 000 Mr Price outlets. Recharge vouchers are also available at Neotel outlets and Sasol forecourts.
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