Cell C CEO on why he believes Vodacom and MTN waste money

[Bradley Prior]

Cell C CEO on why he believes Vodacom and MTN waste money

Cell C CEO Douglas Craigie Stevenson has highlighted a major problem in the mobile telecoms industry, one which is especially prevalent at major operators like Vodacom and MTN.

 

[Matt91]

 

[neoprema]

So your own company is tanking worse than the Titanic but your decision is to run down how other businesses operate?

 

[UrBaN963]

The dude whose company posted a R7.5B loss is giving us advice

Thanks champ!

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

So your own company is tanking worse than the Titanic but your decision is to run down how other businesses operate?

the best form of defense... is attack.

 

[dominic]

“We’ve done a pretty good job in terms of making or proving the case that this business could run as an MNO as well as then transition into a new business,” he said.

When asked about the upcoming spectrum auction, Craigie Stevenson said it would be remiss of him not to participate.

“How will I pay for it? Let me make that a problem for asking ICASA, the government, whatever it may be, but we’re still very much an MNO in our core, we just don’t have the radio access network,” he said.

“We can utilize spectrum on another network.”

“We will either lease the spectrum from government or we will pay for it as we use it,” he said.

wut???????

 

[Beyond.Celsus]

 

[GhostSixFour]

So what I'm reading between the lines, is that he fears that he'll be unemployed soon and he wanted to put it out to the market that he does know some things, so maybe someone will hire him?

 

[pks]

BBB

 

[Thor]

Says the CEO of a company who failed because they wasted money.

 

[Rickster]

Clown...

 

[Corelli]

Seriously. Fix your own house first do you dont need to rely on handouts. Even Telkom will become better than you. Even with their terrible client service I have met more people loyal to their Freeme bundles than anyone else.

 

[Superjakes]

Says the CEO of a company who failed because they wasted money.

In his defense - he was dealt a pretty difficult hand. I suppose he could have declined, but saving a company that was (and still is) in Cell C's position was always more than a challenge.

 

[Thor]

Seriously. Fix your own house first do you dont need to rely on handouts. Even Telkom will become better than you. Even with their terrible client service I have met more people loyal to their Freeme bundles than anyone else.

 

[defcomk]

The dude whose company posted a R7.5B loss is giving us advice

Thanks champ!

 

[Swa]

Coming from the company that posted a multi billion loss partially because of the exodus of prepaid subscribers. MTN, Vodacom and now Telkom have built most of their business on the prepaid market and would never have been so successful without it. Looking at Capex is fallacious as it doesn't relate to your prepaid customer base but rather your subscriber base, and there's no guarantee you will make more by servicing post paid subscribers only in fact it's the opposite.

The only reason Cell C can make this statement is because it's transitioning into a MVNO so they have no Capex and it becomes purely a revenue per user issue but even this is wrong. My spend on Cell C is R500 per 3-6 months on prepaid. Stop offering this or become even less competitive and you lose my money.

 

[TelkomUseless]

He said the industry was pumping SIM cards into the market just so a subscriber can throw it away in seven months.

“It makes no sense, its inefficient, and it’s costing the industry money,” Craigie Stevenson said.

Dude... I worked for a company doing some sim related stuff. You know how much money people spend (pre-paid), freaking MILLIONS a month. Not sure why he chose to chase away that money... VC/MTN etc picked them up and is making millions (even if they chuck their sims after 5 months).