Cheapest prepaid mobile products in South Africa

A new report from Research ICT Africa shows that Telkom Mobile has the most affordable pre-paid cellular product in South Africa, followed by Cell C.

Research ICT Africa, which conducts research on ICT policy and regulation, used the OECD’s methodology and product information from the operators’ webpages to find the cheapest pre-paid mobile products in the country.

The research firm calculated the affordability using the OECD 40 calls and 60 SMS basket metric. The rates are split between on-net and off-net, peak and off-peak, and different times of the day and weekend.

“MTN and Vodacom introduced a 2 cent per-second billing product, reducing their OECD basket to ZAR122.26,” the Research ICT Africa report states.

Vodacom and MTN’s rates are still higher than the cheapest product from Cell C and Telkom Mobile – 2 cents per second is equivalent to ZAR1.2 per minute, compared to Cell C’s 99 cents and Telkom Mobile’s 95 cents.

The following chart shows the Research ICT Africa findings based on the cost of cheapest pre-paid mobile products.

Cheapest prepaid mobile products in South Africa

The report highlighted that Telkom Mobile announced a lower on-net price of 29 cents per minute and a 75 cent off-net price, pricing considerably lower than any other offering.

“This offer, however, fell outside the period under review and thus is not incorporated in the analysis above and will only be reflected in the next quarterly report.”

“It does, however, suggest that late entrants now have significant room to go head-to-head with the dominant operators on price.”

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