Festive season beeps in with 85.5m SMS
January 5, 2004
By Gugulakhe Masango
Johannesburg - The cellphone industry recorded 85.5 million short message services (SMS) during the festive season, implying that mobile network operators will continue to generate more revenue as competition for subscribers hots up.
Vodacom registered 51 million SMS during the Christmas period in 2003, compared with 39 million SMS in the previous festive season.
"We will release the New Year's Eve figures [on Monday] and we expect the numbers to show a significant growth," said Mthobi Tyamzashe, Vodacom's group executive of corporate affairs.
Rival MTN Group recorded 24 million SMS and 30 million successful calls over the Christmas and New Year's day.
Donovan Smith, MTN's general manager of consumer marketing, said MTN had increased its core SMS infrastructure capacity by about 30 percent in anticipation of call and SMS traffic over the festive season.
Cell C, the country's third cellular operator, reported 10.5 million SMS during the Christmas period into the New Year in its second festive season.
"We have benefited from our new subscribers, which have more than doubled last year," said Fred Coetzer, Cell C's chief operations officer. Cell C last year delivered 3.4 million SMS in its first festive season.
The cellphone industry benefited from the mobile network operators' seasonal campaigns to entice customers to make more calls and SMS and to invite new customers to subscribe.
Vodacom benefited from its Yebo Summer campaign and Cell C from its Red Hot Summer. MTN's SMS were boosted by its popular campaign of trying to virtually paint the country yellow with its Yello Summer adverts.
The increase in the number of SMS sent during the festive season will go a long way for Cell C, which is expected this year to break even financially.
MTN reported R1.82 billion in attributable profit during the six months to September, while Vodacom clocked up R1.37 billion.
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