{"id":550366,"date":"2006-10-03T07:28:54","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T07:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/550366-cheap-until-you-chirp.html"},"modified":"2006-10-03T07:28:54","modified_gmt":"2006-10-03T07:28:54","slug":"cheap-until-you-chirp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/550366-cheap-until-you-chirp.html","title":{"rendered":"Cheap until you chirp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though Nokia still rules with a staggering 64,5% of the market, second-placed Motorola is making headway, pushing up its share from 10,3% in 2003 to 17% this year, according to a survey conducted by the SA Advertising Research Foundation. <\/font><\/p>\n

While Motorola’s stylish Razr range has won the company many fans, its prize-winning C113 and C118 phones have been quietly gaining ground, in SA and other emerging markets. Last September, Motorola won a GSM Association competition to provide handsets that sold for less than US$30. <\/font><\/p>\n

Global sales of Motorola’s C113 and C113A (now the C118) exceeded the cellphone maker’s target of 12m phones in the first six months after the competition. <\/font><\/p>\n

In SA, the Motorola C113 sells for as little as R49. Some Vodacom dealers require you to buy a R199 starter pack with the phone, pushing the price up to about R250, but that’s still close to $30 at R7,50\/US$. Cell C prices the phone at R269 excluding the R25 starter pack. <\/font><\/p>\n

Not to be outdone, Nokia has produced its own range. Its 1100 phone sells for about R160 excluding a starter pack. <\/font><\/p>\n

These phones don’t take pictures or send multimedia messages. They do, however, come with a few extras, like monochrome (black and green) graphics and a stopwatch. <\/font><\/p>\n

Industry players say the cost of a handset, however, is no longer the obstacle to accessing telecommunications services. Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, a technology research group, says tariffs are the real issue when it comes to cellphones. <\/font><\/p>\n

A recent survey conducted by World Wide Worx found that the lower-end users, who make up 45% of the total market, spend an average of only R109\/month on calls. This equates to about R3,30\/day or, at current rates, less than a minute a day. Prepaid subscribers are also discriminated against because they pay a higher rate than their contract counterparts. <\/font><\/p>\n

Discuss this article<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

Financial Mail<\/em> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tussle between mobile handset producers Nokia and Motorola is heating up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"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":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550366"}],"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=550366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}