noxibox said:
It will make each more aggressive in keeping their clients. Each will know that all their competitor has to do is offer a better deal.
Not really true, and here's why:
Firstly, that's ALREADY THE CASE and has been for years, because to most SA consumers, "keeping my number" is anyway only a miniscule factor when considering switching operators compared to "price"; i.o.w. even without MNP lots of people would already switch if any particular operator was demonstrably cheaper than the others. (Many people I know have changed numbers several times already anyway.) What will
really be new?
Secondly, if a price war was triggered, ALL of the operators would have to respond in kind, which would mean prices would quickly equalize again (just at a much lower point), and hence
very few people would actually switch anyway (I mean, why switch if your operator is dropping its prices too?) .. the operators know this.
Third, margins are so inflated, that even if any single operator did somehow manage to gain a notable amount of market share, any (monetary) amount they could possibly gain would be more than offset several times over in the form of MUCH lower profits per customer. In other words, margins are so incredibly high that triggering a price war is like "Mutually Assured Destruction", which is why none of them will do it. MNP won't and cannot change the MAD scenario. The operators want you to believe that MNP is going to "shake up the market", but in reality they're laughing all the way to the bank. I maintain (and will bet on it too) that MNP will not stimulate any worthwhile competition whatsoever - at best we might have another carefully planned and coordinated smoke and mirrors show with the usual nonsense 'PRICES SLASHED' press release headlines.
The SAn operators, especially Vodacom and MTN, have reached a point where they
do not really want to try significantly expand their market share within South Africa. That sounds illogical, but it's not: The market is becoming saturated and they know it. So intuitively you might think "well then, they'll want to try compete more aggressively in order to steal clients
from each other". Think like a businessman rather and you'll see what they're really thinking though: "Let's use our very comfortable positions in SA as a huge cash cow in order to fund the expansion of our foreign interests and operations". And gee look, the operators have been doing exactly that, buying into overseas telecomms companies. SA might be saturating, but it's still a huge growth market elsewhere, and why kill the cash cow that you can use to fund entry into those markets.