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Africa
27 3 04
South Africa's third GSM operator, Cell C has signed up more
than 3 million subscribers by the end of 2003. There are 1.9 million active
users of the network. This represents 12% of all the country's mobile
subscribers.
Some 84 percent, or 1.6 million of its subscribers were prepaid users and 16
percent contract. Average revenue per user (Arpu) for prepaid was R62 and
R409 for contract users, with a blended Arpu of R110.
Talaat Laham, the chief executive, said the company
estimated that 51 percent of the growth was from new users and that Cell C
had poached about 49 percent of its active subscribers from its competitors,
Vodacom and MTN.
Cell C operates on GSM 900/1800Mhz and is expected to start
producing profit by the end of the year. It said it expected the total
cellphone market to reach 20 million users by 2008, after revising its 19
million forecast six months ago.
Laham said Cell C's dropped call rate remained at less than
1 percent and its call set-up success rate was above the target of 96
percent.
Cell C has committed R4.4 billion to procurement and
contracts and about R1.5 billion has been spent with black empowerment
firms.
It has increased its staff numbers to 1 800 from 1 450 since
last June and has more than 5 000 active community service telephones.
"We believe this means we are on track to meet our licence
obligation by the end of 2008," said Laham.
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