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Some 3 000 Nashua Mobile subscribers cut off

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson, Contributor.
Johannesburg, 07 Nov 2014
More than 50 000 Cell C subscribers have been successfully migrated to Altech Autopage from Nashua Mobile.
More than 50 000 Cell C subscribers have been successfully migrated to Altech Autopage from Nashua Mobile.

Altech Autopage had a few issues migrating 55 000 Cell C customers to its system when about 3 000 subscribers - or 5.45% - were soft-locked because their accounts reflected as being in arrears.

This comes after all the conditions required for Nashua Mobile to hive off its customer base were recently met, and it closed it physical outlets a week ago. Parent company Reunert sold the Cell C customer base to Autopage for a maximum amount of R91.5 million in a move that followed the sale of the MTN and Vodacom subscriber bases to the cellphone operators for R2.26 billion.

Autopage says it is in the process of contacting affected customers by SMS to clarify whether their accounts are paid up, or are in arrears. "All paid up customer accounts are in the process of being unblocked as we confirm the status of these accounts. We are also engaging with customers that are in arrears."

The service provider, the only independent one of any stature left after Nashua Mobile's demise, says all the other customers have been moved to its platform.

"Prior to the migration, all Nashua Mobile Cell C customers were contacted by Altech Autopage informing them of the pending migration and how they could contact Altech Autopage should they encounter any problems in the migration process."

Reunert will earn a total maximum amount of R3.17 billion, which it will use to settle Nashua Mobile's liabilities, support its growth strategy, and then return the balance to shareholders, either through dividends, or share buybacks.

Nashua Mobile's sell-off came less than a year after it vowed to fix its reputation in a bid to win over customers. Nashua Mobile has been battling as competition between mobile operators intensified in the saturated market.

Reunert's decision was driven by the fact that Nashua Mobile was operating in a saturated, highly-competitive market, and experiencing declining average revenue per user and lower revenue streams.

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