Vodacom blows R30m on party

I don't think a company with the turnover and staff size of Vodacom is being unreasonable hosting an end of year party of this size. The "part of every call you make" is extremely small, and if it wasn't spent on a party, then it would end up going to some other cause.
 
30,000,000 divided by a guest list of 7000 is r4,285 per person!
DVDA said:
if it wasn't spent on a party, then it would end up going to some other cause.
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Like doing something worthwhile to the community?
 
.. and each year we do something different to thank everybody who contributed to our success.
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I guess we customers didn't contribute to vodacom's success and as such we deserve no such thanks.
 
bwana - Vodacom already do a great deal for the community, and South African sport. Would you prefer that they spend the festive season miserable and engaging in self-flaggelation?
 
You're right - they deserve their party. Its tiring work screwing over a country. :)
 
Personally, the R400 I pay for my month cellphone usage (including the installment for my free K750i) is fairly in-line with the value of the rand. I would say that I gain the same (if not more) utils of benefit from my Vodacom account than I do from spending R400 on entertainment or any other expense. I really don't think their voice packages are overpriced.
 
DVDA said:
Personally, the R400 I pay for my month cellphone usage (including the installment for my free K750i) is fairly in-line with the value of the rand. I would say that I gain the same (if not more) utils of benefit from my Vodacom account than I do from spending R400 on entertainment or any other expense. I really don't think their voice packages are overpriced.
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"Installment" for your "free phone" seems a bit of a contradiction to me but I understand what you're saying even though I disagree with it. I look at my T-mobile account and see the 1500 free minutes I get for that r400 you mentioned and would defiantly say their voice packages are overpriced.

Just because Vodacom's packages are similar in price to the other cellphone providers doesn't justify it - all it indicates is collusion.
 
As long as they keep giving me good service, I dont have a problem with spending whatever they want on parties
 
bwana : That 1500 min includes incoming calls. But you cant seriously expect vodacoms prices to be the same as T-Mobile. I think Vodacom is very reasonable, but each to his own
 
JStrike said:
bwana : That 1500 min includes incoming calls. But you cant seriously expect vodacoms prices to be the same as T-Mobile.
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Why not? If we can expect telkom to fall in line with global trends why not the cellular providers?

As far as t-mobile goes - yeah - I know it's an odd system and one that extends to all the providers there but look at it the way they do - people calling the mobile phone pay the same as they would for a landline call. There the cost is shared where as here the caller bears the full burden.
 
Got to love the "charity" of these scumbag companies, in a country where so many are homeless, lacking education and basic services.

How about putting half of that toward community upliftment ?

... wait for it ... someone is going to say "But Vodacom already do a lot for charitable causes"

Yeah right, like the Pay-as-u-go scam, where the poor end up paying more for cellular services than those who can afford a contract.

... wait for it ... "but Vodacom have opened up communication for the masses" - yeah, of course, and boy, are they turning a mean profit from that !

It's a disgusting waste of resources whichever way you look at it, but then, they are a business, albiet a business with no morals at all - I wonder if they call themselves "proudly south african" ?

The way I see it, instead of these huge companies being beneficial to South Africa, they are in fact damaging it with their overpriced fees. Just a small fraction of their ad-spend could do the world of good for communities around the country. And how about slashing pay-as-u-go by 50% ?

Ah well, I'm sure Vodacom can put whatever spin on this they want and point out all the good they are doing for communities - well, the simple fact is, it's us and those communities that are footing the bill while Vodacom rake in the profits and throw themselves a disgustingly overpriced xmas bash.

Shame on you Vodacom.

Unfortunately, this is mirrored by big business all over South Africa, they seem to have little or no conscience about the plight of millions of their fellow countrymen.

It doesn't take a genius to realise that the money used on such extravagance could do wonders to uplift the country.
Schools, houses, hospitals - how many could be funded by R30million ?
Multiply that by all the Xmas parties of all the big corporates and you could really help millions of people.

If anything drags South Africa down, it will be these companies who take but don't give back.
 
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Vodacom can't give the same deals as T-Mobile because they have to pay a portion to Telkom, like the other 2 cellphone providers.
 
Dominic Rooney said:
Vodacom can't give the same deals as T-Mobile because they have to pay a portion to Telkom, like the other 2 cellphone providers.
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I understand there are interconnection fees but why are they so unbalanced? What they pay telkom is a fraction of they charge each other and what they charge telkom to access the mobile network. Surely it should be the same both directions?

We pay more because they have no reason not to charge us less.
 
i dont think we can moan about what they spend their money on.

i dont go to spar or pick and pay and complain about their christmas parties saying that the money should be given elsewhere.
they made the bux while doing legit business ... they can blow it on any damn thing they want.
 
No offence, but I think you guys who think Vodacom's prices are fair are suckers! They're ripping us off ... their profit margins are about the same as Telkom's, they're just as greedy, and they may not be a monopoly but prices are fixed.
 
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bb_matt said:
It's a disgusting waste of resources whichever way you look at it, but then, they are a business, albiet a business with no morals at all - I wonder if they call themselves "proudly south african" ?

The way I see it, instead of these huge companies being beneficial to South Africa, they are in fact damaging it with their overpriced fees. Just a small fraction of their ad-spend could do the world of good for communities around the country. And how about slashing pay-as-u-go by 50% ?
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Yeah, well bb_matt, I'm afraid what you are complaining about is called "capitalism". Vodacom does a lot of good through sport and community sponsorships, and what they choose do with the rest of their money is up to them. When you start donating all your disposable income to charity, then you might be in a better position to complain?

Look, I'm not trying to stand up for Vodacom, but rather I'm trying to point out that if this forum deteriorates into random complaining for the sake of complaining, then we are bound to be taken less seriously by the media. I think 30mil might be a little over-the-top, but I certainly don't think it warrants Vodacom being slagged off as a distusting money-hungry pig-dog corporation because the fact is that they do a lot of good for this country.
 
DVDA said:
When you start donating all your disposable income to charity, then you might be in a better position to complain?
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"All" your disposable income? R30,000,000 is about 0.35% of Vodacom's annual profits. I certainly do donate far more than that percentage of my disposable income to charity, so I guess I can complain then.

Honestly, a few sponsorships of sport and community centers etc. are cheap peanuts for these companies, it's just PR carefully designed by a marketing team to make you think they're really a warm-hearted company, and obviously it's working. This kind of manipulation is right from a Marketing 101 textbook, come on. But the price gouging going on in the cellular sector puts a real drain on our economy and prevents employment growth as it keeps our businesses inefficient --- I'm sorry, that is not "random complaining for the sake of complaining", that is real harm being done. This is not just some abstract concern, or 'ooh big companies are evil' slagging off.
 
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OK im probably biased because i was at Vodacom s joburg party.

First off i agree 100 % that we pay way to much to communicate in this country including cellular.
But if you view the parties as an employee perk, R4000 odd a year per employee isnt that rediculous.

And no i dont work for Telkom or any of their partners.
 
I have been with all three cellular networks and in my opinion Vodacom delivers a very good service.

They offer their South African customers services as fast as their European counterpart (VodaFone) does unlike Telkom which only offers a 1Mbit DSL connection for friggen billions of rands.

If you compare VodaFone UK Tariffs to Vodacom SA then you will notice that their voice, sms and data rates are really not that out of line. Data costs (R2 per Meg with no bundle and R0.40c per MB in a bundle) is really affordable locally.

My statement is this, Vodacom is definetly not the cheapest network in the world, but I have observerd international tariffs and the way international networks bill e.g you pay for incoming and outgoing calls on some networks, same with paying for incoming and outgoing sms's on some networks, Vodacom really does not offer a pathetic service like Telkom SA does
 
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