Mobile data prices in South Africa have consistently declined over the past decade, improving Internet access as smartphone adoption continues to grow.<\/p>\n
MTN and Vodacom’s data prices previously ranked as among the most expensive in South Africa – however, it is important to note that these operators also deliver better network quality and coverage than their competitors.<\/p>\n
Vodacom and MTN spend large amounts of money ensuring they have wide-reaching and reliable networks. This is the reason they have had to charge more for their mobile data bundles \u2013 to earn money back for their capital expenditure (capex).<\/p>\n
The easiest ways to cut data prices would be to cut network investment, meaning that South Africans would have worse connectivity, or to access new spectrum.<\/p>\n
The latter option is preferable, as outlined by both mobile operators in their recent announcements of data price cuts.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Despite not having access to new spectrum, and continuing to invest in their networks, Vodacom and MTN have dropped their data prices over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n Recently, the Competition Commission also published its final Data Service Market Inquiry report, which called for MTN and Vodacom to drop their data prices further.<\/p>\n Vodacom and MTN reached an agreement with the Commission to drop prices for sub-1GB 30-day data bundles by up to 40% and 50% respectively.<\/p>\n This means that smaller data bundles from both mobile operators have become substantially cheaper.<\/p>\n To illustrate how far mobile data prices have fallen over the past 10 years, we compared the prices of current Vodacom and MTN 30-day data bundles with their prices in 2010.<\/p>\n We also compared out-of-bundle data prices for each bundle, and noted that while Vodacom\u2019s out-of-bundle rates are lower, out-of-bundle data on MTN has increased for several packages.<\/p>\nMassive data price cuts<\/h3>\n
\nData prices<\/h3>\n