{"id":540655,"date":"2024-06-12T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T06:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=540655"},"modified":"2024-06-12T10:59:59","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T08:59:59","slug":"cell-c-selling-its-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/540655-cell-c-selling-its-stores.html","title":{"rendered":"Cell C selling its stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cell C has informed staff of its plans to franchise 44 of the 47 retail outlets it owns as mobile operators face intense competition in the market.<\/p>\n

It was originally reported<\/a> that the decision could impact at least 400 staff. However, Cell C has denied this. Instead, it hopes to create more job opportunities.<\/p>\n

Cell C chief officer for sales, distribution, and regions, Chris Lazarus, said the franchising process offers an opportunity to create more jobs for South Africans.<\/p>\n

“We’re embarking on a process to franchise the 44 stores that we have,” Lazarus told<\/a> Kaya FM.<\/p>\n

“We’re also going to look at creating an opportunity of enterprise development and SMME, where our staff themselves can partake in the future ownership of some of these stores.”<\/p>\n

He added that the franchising of 44 Cell C stores should not be seen as the company divorcing itself from the brand.<\/p>\n

“The brand remains that of Cell C, and if anything, you’re going to see further investment in that brand over the next 18 months,” said Lazarus.<\/p>\n

In an interview with SABC News<\/a>, Lazarus said not a single staff member will lose their job.<\/p>\n

“Any contract that we have with a staff member, the terms and conditions of that staff member will be transferred to whoever the new owner of the store is, so nobody will be impacted,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C’s decision to cut costs by franchising its stores isn’t surprising, with the mobile operator’s annual results for the 2022\/23 financial year revealing that it was hopelessly insolvent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Its balance sheet showed that its liabilities exceeded its assets by R9.294 billion.<\/p>\n

More recently, in February 2024, Cell C’s parent company, Blue Label Telecoms, revealed that the operator made a R337-million loss<\/a> in the six months ended 30 November 2023.<\/p>\n

This represented a significant swing from the R5.81 billion profit it reported for the same period in 2022.<\/p>\n

However, Blue Label Telecoms co-CEO Mark Levy explained that the profit in 2022 was a once-off, resulting from Cell C’s recapitalisation.<\/p>\n

Cell C’s recapitalisation took place in September 2022.<\/p>\n

Blue Label Telecoms concluded a series of agreements with Cell C and its stakeholders to refinance the mobile operator.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, Cell C remains optimistic about its prospects. In December 2023, it said its business stabilisation efforts were bearing fruit.<\/p>\n

It said the business showed its resilience by maintaining revenue of R10.09 billion for the year-to-date to September 2023 versus R10.14 billion in 2022.<\/p>\n

Its average revenue per user had also increased from R74 in 2022 to R80 by the end of September 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cell C is looking for buyers for 44 of the 47 brick-and-mortar stores it owns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":540683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1017,355,35,19969,95363],"class_list":["post-540655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-blue-label-telecoms","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mark-levy","tag-tshepo-mongoai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540655"}],"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\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540733,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540655\/revisions\/540733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}