David Shapiro, deputy chairman at Sasfin Securities, said Cell C faces a big challenge in trying to keep up with multi-billion-rand network investments\u00a0by other operators.<\/p>\n
Cell C is currently part of a restructuring deal which will see Blue Label Telecoms<\/strong><\/a> and Net1 UEPS Technologies<\/strong><\/a> buy 45% and 15% stakes in the operator respectively.<\/p>\n The deal will provide Cell C with much-needed cash to reduce its debt levels – R5.5 billion from Blue Label and R2 billion from Net1.<\/p>\n However, Shapiro said<\/strong><\/a> it will take far more cash than that to ensure Cell C can compete effectively against Vodacom and MTN.<\/p>\n Shapiro pointed to MTN, which invested R11 billion in its network over the past financial year. This is much more than what Cell C has at its disposal.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to stay competitive, you have to spend a lot of money to do that. More and more competition is coming into the market,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other thing is voice is falling. Data use is increasing, but at much cheaper rates.”<\/p>\n Shapiro questioned whether Blue Label Telecoms and Net1 have resources to fund the capex needed to remain competitive in the\u00a0local telecommunications market.<\/p>\n Blue Label Telecoms CEO Mark Levy is more upbeat, saying they will start reaping the rewards of their investment in Cell C from day one.<\/p>\n \u201cCell C is really doing well in the market, and is capturing market share,\u201d said Levy.<\/p>\n He said the company will provide Blue Label with additional revenue as soon as the deal is done.<\/p>\n Cell C is burdened with a mountain of debt, but the company and its potential new shareholders face another daunting challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":185806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1017,355,35,42,26350,41696,41],"class_list":["post-201588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-cellular","tag-blue-label-telecoms","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-net1","tag-net1-ueps","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201806,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201588\/revisions\/201806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read:\u00a0Net1 to buy 15% stake in Cell C<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"