Cell C moving backwards
When Jorge Mendes took the reins at Cell C in 2023, he said they wanted to reach 15% revenue market share in South Africa. However, the company is moving backwards.
Mendes was appointed as the CEO of Cell C on 1 July 2023. Before that, he was chief officer of the consumer business at Vodacom South Africa.
Soon after he started his new position, Mendes held a media briefing where he told journalists that they wanted to reach 15% revenue market share in South Africa to become sustainable.
At the time, Cell C had already significantly reduced costs, including retrenching most of its staff and switching off its radio access network.
Mendes said they were working on their new strategy, which would require a minimum of 15% revenue market share.
“We would be profitable before reaching 15% market share, but that would be a solid position to be in,” he said.
Mendes told journalists that Cell C was set to shake up the South African mobile industry with innovative new products.
He also promised it would not be business as usual at Cell C and that the company would be different going forward.
“We have to build an amazing culture. Our employees and partners must love to work with Cell C,” Mendes said.
Despite the challenges, he said Cell C still has brand value, which they will build upon to make it a brand that South Africans truly love.
“Cell C must become a real purpose organisation that adds value just beyond a SIM card and a tariff plan.”
In mid-2023, Mendes promised Cell C would be a different organisation in the next 18 to 24 months.
Time to assess Cell C’s performance
It has been more than 24 months since Mendes shared his strategy and target with the media, and it is time to take stock of Cell C’s performance.
Cell C recently published its latest financial results with investors, which showed that the mobile operator is struggling to gain market share.
Instead of climbing towards its target of 15%, Cell C’s market share has declined since Mendes took the reins at the operator.
In 2020, Cell C’s share of the South African telecommunications market, which includes Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom, stood at 8.5%.
In 2023, when Jorge Mendes took the reins as Cell C’s new CEO, the company’s market share stood at 6.3%. Today, it is only 5.6%, well below Mendes’ target of 15%.
For Cell C to reach its 15% market share target, it must first address the challenges it faces in increasing revenue and then outperform Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom.
To date, Cell C has not shown that it was able to outperform the larger South African telecommunications players.
The charts below show Cell C’s revenue market share in the South African telecommunications market.
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