Telkom is a very different company to what it was a decade ago.<\/p>\n
It has moved from being a state-protected monopoly, to a disruptive force in the South African telecommunications market.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Telkom of old, the company offers aggressively-priced consumer products – often with free voice services – which put pressure on its competitors.<\/p>\n
What Telkom is doing now was unthinkable in the early 2000s, when it fought to cling onto its monopoly in the fixed-line market.<\/p>\n
Telkom was also a big shareholder in Vodacom, which means it had a dominant position in the South African fixed and mobile telecoms space.<\/p>\n
However, things started to change after its monopoly in the fixed-line space disappeared and it sold its stake in Vodacom in 2009.<\/p>\n
Following the sale, Telkom launched a mobile operator, named 8ta, in 2010. This marked a change in the way the company approached the market.<\/p>\n
8ta launched competitive mobile products and had a data-centric approach instead of the voice-centric approach of its competitors.<\/p>\n
This data-centric strategy continued, and its FreeMe packages<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0launched in 2016 surprised the market with large data allocations and free calls to local networks.<\/p>\n Telkom\u2019s aggressive prices and innovative products saw the company voted the best mobile provider by consumers for five years in a row.<\/p>\n