MTN enters international call price war

MTN has entered the ongoing international call price war with a new promotion that conditionally offers free calls to certain international destinations.

The MTN Zone International Calling promotion – available to MTN Zone PayAsYouGo, MTN Zone Anytime TopUp and MTN Zone Off-Peak TopUp customers – offers discounts on international call rates up to 100%, depending on the destination country.

Some destinations will be discounted between 10% and 90%, while certain countries will receive a 100% discount. The 100% discount only applies to the first hour, after which the normal discounted rate (between 10% and 90%) will apply.

The countries which will be discounted 100% will vary during the promotion, MTN said, and promotional discounts can be viewed on MTN’s site or by dialling *111*2# on a mobile device.

Furthermore, the promotional rates are only available between 06:00 and 18:00, from Monday to Friday.

The promotion runs from 1 November 2012 to 31 January 2013, and is not available to MTN Call Per Second, MTN OneRate, MTN Muziq, MTN TopUp and MTN Contract customers.

Battleground

MTN’s latest promotion joins Cell C and Vodacom in an aggressive international calling price war.

In August, Cell C kicked off what has become a to-and-fro battle with Vodacom by cutting its international call rate to 99c per minute to 50 countries, and reducing the call rates to over 150 others.

Following Cell C’s aggressive stance, Vodacom announced the launch of its international calling promotion – offering mobile calls to 52 international destinations at 89c per minute to Contract, Top Up and Prepaid customers – for R5 per month.

Cell C CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, said that the operator had promised to better the 99c rate if its competitors responded to its standard international call rate. He followed through by cutting the Cell C international call rate further, to 85c, with no monthly opt-in fee.

Unlike Vodacom and Cell C, MTN’s promotion does not offer a fixed rate, and is highly dependent on the country to which customers call.

* Country dependent

Related articles

Cell C slashes int calling rates to 85c per minute

Vodacom 89c international calling promotion

New Cell C international calling price plan