‘Red Hot’ advice for Vodacom on data pricing

Vodacom has recently re-launched its brand giving it a distinct Vodafone look and feel. Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys however said that the new red colour is only the beginning.

“The change in colour is the tip of the iceberg, just the outside indication of a much bigger change at Vodacom. The role we play in our customers’ lives has changed – connectivity has gone from a convenience to a basic need, and we need to turn our business on its head to make sure that we cater for this,” said Uys.

Uys also promised consumers better service levels, a world class network and better value for money.

Not all consumers were convinced, with many calling for action rather than words. “Simpler and quicker but by no means cheaper,” said one MyBroadband member.

One of the biggest complaints is Vodacom’s mobile broadband pricing. In March 2007 Vodacom surprised the South African broadband market when it slashed its mobile data offerings by up to 61%.

At the time Vodacom cut the price of its 1GB data bundles from R499.00 to R289.00 per month while they reduced the cost of their 2GB offering from R998.00 to R389.00.

Apart from some small changes and decreasing the price of out-of-bundle data, not much has changed since March 2007. This is despite the fact that international and national bandwidth prices plummeted over the last two years.

Vodacom has recently unveiled new device-free data pricing, but with price cuts of less than R30 per GB, and still more expensive than Cell C’s standard data bundle pricing, it is hardly going to delight consumers.

It is well known that no telecoms company simply wants to slash prices and hence lose revenue (effectively reducing the average revenue per user – ARPU), and adding more value to subscribers is therefore a better route to follow.

Keeping this in mind Vodacom can delight their customers, and lose no revenue, by simply moving all subscribers up to the ‘next’ data bundle size. This will also reward high end users with lower per-MB rates – an initiative which Vodacom failed to do until now.

Here is an example of new pricing which their subscribers will most likely be happy with:

A pricing model similar to the one above will not only provide Vodacom’s subscribers with more value for money, but will also undercut their competitors to show that the company which pioneered mobile broadband in South Africa is serious about proving affordable connectivity to consumers.

Do you approve of MyBroadband’s proposed data pricing for Vodacom? << Vote now and give your views

Don't miss the latest news

• Add MyBroadband as a preferred source in Google Search
• Follow MyBroadband on Google News