If you invested R1,000 in MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom in 2023, here is how much you would have

If you invested R1,000 in any of South Africa’s three major mobile network operators at the start of the year, you would have lost money on each of them.

MyBroadband analysed the share price performance of MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom from the opening of trade on Tuesday, 3 January 2023, to market open on Tuesday, 5 September 2023.

When the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) opened on 3 January 2023, MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom’s share prices sat at R130.70, R124.47, and R31.80, respectively.

At the start of September, a R1,000 investment in MTN shares at the beginning of the year would have decreased by R62.74 to R937.26.

The reduction in share price was even greater for Vodacom and Telkom, with the investment value dropping to R873.30 and R851.26, respectively.

Therefore, you would have lost R126.70 on Vodacom and R148.74 on Telkom.

These figures are summarised in the table below.

Despite all three telecom companies’ share prices declining between 1 January and the start of September, their performance so far this year has been significantly better than in 2022.

Telkom’s share price dropped a whopping 43.9% between 3 January and 27 December 2022. For the year-to-date, its share price has declined by approximately 15%.

Looking at MTN, the mobile operator’s share price declined by 25.7% throughout 2022, while it has only dropped by around 6% so far this year.

This starkly contrasts with 2021, when MTN’s share price surged by as much as 175.3% between January 2021 and February 2022.

However, 2023’s figures show that mobile operator share prices continue to decline from the storming year the companies experienced in 2021.

MTN’s share price peaked at around R147 at the end of January 2023.

Its price significantly declined between early March and early June, after which it rose sharply to R144.10 in mid-June. It has since fallen to R122.50.

Vodacom’s share price has seen less significant fluctuations so far in 2023, with the stock peaking at around R128 in early March.

Its share price of R108.70 as of 5 September is approximately 12.7% down from its opening price on 3 January.

Telkom’s share price opened at R31.80 in January 2023, and it had dropped to R27.07 as of 5 September — a decline of almost 15% for the year-to-date.

The declines experienced since 2021 aren’t unexpected.

The global technology industry was one of the hardest hit by the high inflation and slow economic growth that weighed heavily on consumers and businesses in 2022 as countries grappled with the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns.

This resulted in some of the world’s biggest technology companies announcing substantial staff cuts in late 2022 and early 2023, including Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta Platforms (Facebook), and Microsoft.

We tracked MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom’s share prices from the opening of the JSE on 3 January 2023 to 5 September 2023. These are shown in the chart below.

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