{"id":552234,"date":"2007-05-10T07:12:16","date_gmt":"2007-05-10T07:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/552234-100-000-mark.html"},"modified":"2007-05-10T07:12:16","modified_gmt":"2007-05-10T07:12:16","slug":"100-000-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/552234-100-000-mark.html","title":{"rendered":"100 000 mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company released its subscriber numbers for the first time this week, with CEO Peter Boyd saying the 100000 mark was passed \u201ca few weeks ago\u201d. <\/font><\/p>\n

MTN, alone, is signing up customers in SA at the rate of 6077 a day. <\/font><\/p>\n

Despite the low figure, Boyd said Virgin Mobile was on track with its targets and saw it as an internal milestone worth celebrating. \u201cIt\u2019s about right in terms of the business plan that we have gone through since I joined,\u201d he said. <\/font><\/p>\n

The company had previously refused to issue its subscriber numbers, fuelling speculation that it was struggling to crack even the 10000 mark. <\/font><\/p>\n

Virgin runs as a virtual operator over Cell C\u2019s network and both companies are equal shareholders in the venture. Neither will say how much they are pumping into the operation and Boyd said it would be silly to talk about achieving a profit so soon after its launch last June. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a path to profitability but it\u2019s medium term,\u201d he said. <\/font><\/p>\n

Virgin will be hoping to achieve a profit more rapidly than Cell C, which has yet to do so after six years in business. <\/font><\/p>\n

Cell C reported a 19% increase in revenue to R6,5bn for the year to December 31, but CEO Jeffrey Hedberg blamed the joint venture with Virgin for eroding its profits. Cell C\u2019s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) dropped 15,3%, from R541m to R458m. The gross profit, however, had risen 18% to R2,3bn through serving 3,3-million subscribers. <\/font><\/p>\n

Boyd said that Cell C had the right to \u201cascribe various reasons for their financial performance\u201d, but both partners had been fully aware of their group\u2019s cash commitments. <\/font><\/p>\n

Their relationship was good and Cell C\u2019s shake-up of its own business plans would not jeopardise that, said Boyd. <\/font><\/p>\n

Both Boyd and Hedberg were brought in to replace the previous CEOs at Virgin Mobile and Cell C last year, in efforts to hone and revitalise the performance of the companies. <\/font><\/p>\n

There is speculation that Cell C\u2019s main shareholder, Saudi Oger, may sell its stake to another operator or investor because no profits are in sight yet. <\/font><\/p>\n

Cell C has confirmed that potential suitors regularly make overtures, without citing any specific bids. <\/font><\/p>\n

Virgin issued its subscriber figures for the first time to coincide with a new advertising campaign calling for more transparent and simpler cellular deals. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more than 100 packages to choose from and it\u2019s frequently hard to compare them, so you don\u2019t know what value you are getting,\u201d said Boyd. <\/font><\/p>\n

It has streamlined its offerings to four basic packages and is targeting fairly high-spending users who spend more than R100 a month. \u201cThe big talkers and big SMSers are the people we really think we can save money for \u2026 Virgin Mobile is very young but it\u2019s old enough to know what people want. <\/font><\/p>\n

We have done a lot of consumer research and hopefully this will have an effect on the gross additions.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n

Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

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VIRGIN Mobile has signed up 100000 customers during its first 11 months, giving it a minuscule share of SA\u2019s estimated 35-million cellphone users. <\/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-552234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552234"}],"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=552234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}