Record breaking holiday season

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 8 January 2007

Cellular network providers in South Africa have seen a record-breaking increase in the number of SMS messages sent as well as voice calls made over the holiday season.

More than 1.5 billion text messages have been sent over the recent holiday season while MTN alone handled 1.87 billion voice calls during Christmas and New Year. Vodacom, although having the most subscribers, 20.2 million to be exact, came in second place.

To give you a quick breakdown:

• MTN  (+-30% share of overall cellular market) – 1.17 billion SMS messages sent over Christmas and New Year (almost twice last year’s figure). 1.87 billion voice calls made over Christmas and New Year (up 46% from previous year) ® Approximately 110 messages per subscriber (please correct us if wrong).

Comment from MTN:

“Our big story is the phenomenal growth of MMS traffic…” said Bernice Samuels, GM for Corporate Affairs at MTN, after MMS (multimedia messages) traffic increased with 400% to 8.8 million messages.

• Vodacom  (+-59% share of overall cellular market) – 350 million SMS messages sent over Christmas and New Year (260 million previous year). No data available in regard to number of voice calls made ® Approximately 17 messages sent per subscriber.

Comments from Vodacom:

“This is an indication of subscribers being more in tune with technology and making greater use of its benefits…” said Dot Field, Chief Communications Officer at Vodacom, in reference to Vodacom’s successes especially in regard to the 2.7 million MMS messages (1.23 million previous year) that were sent over Christmas and the new year ® Approximately 12 messages sent per subscriber.

• Cell C (+-10% share of overall cellular market) – 35 million SMS messages sent over Christmas and New Year (21.2 million previous year). No data available in regard to number of voice calls made.

Comment from Cell C:

Vinnie Santu, Cell C’s Media Liaison Officer, made it clear that Cell C ‘managed a successful call completion rate of 99,1%’ despite the heavy traffic (Billions of beeps usher in new year, Stones, 3 January 2006). This is quite an achievement, taking into consideration that Cell C is the smallest cellular network provider in South Africa with a subscriber base of only 2.9 million subscribers at present.

One thing is clear from the above stats: MTN is the overall winner although both Vodacom and Cell C have much to smile about in terms of individual achievement.

Another positive aspect is the fact that almost no network congestion was reported at all three of the cellular network providers, mainly because of proper preparations being made before the SMS frenzy started.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) welcomes it when cellular network providers prove they have the drive and capability to cope with an increase in demand, not failing like some others.