Ten years after it launched its first mobile offering in the form of 8ta, Telkom has surpassed Cell C to become South Africa’s third largest mobile operator by subscriber numbers.
This became evident on this week when Blue Label Telecom, Cell C’s largest shareholder, published its annual financial results showing that Cell C’s subscriber base had dipped by about a quarter between May 2019 and May 2020.
Cell C said it had 11.8 million total subscribers as at 31 May 2020, down from 15.9 million a year ago, a decline of more than 25%. Telkom had 12 million customers at its financial year-end in March and has likely added to that tally since then.
In the year to 31 March 2020, Telkom said it was the fastest growing mobile business in South Africa. The company grew its mobile service revenue by 54.4% year on year to R12.6-billion on the back of the strong subscriber growth.
Cell C and Telkom have now taken starkly different growth strategies. While Cell C is in the process of outsourcing its radio access network to rival MTN South Africa it will no longer own an access network in future, dramatically reducing its capital expenditure Telkom continues to spend big on its network.