Amidst the doom and gloom of global markets and the current economic turmoil that seems to be rattling the world, Cell C is reportedly bucking the trend by reporting pleasing growth and anticipating greater expansion in the near future. In its latest news, the company stated that it was enjoying good growth at present, in both its revenue and its customer base.

The company elaborated that it has increased its customer base by 12% year-on-year to 8.2 million customers. Additionally, Cell C reported that growth in the prepaid segment was “significant”, with prepaid subscribers having grown by 17% over the past year.

Cell C also launched some solid data offerings the past year, and according to Simon Duffy, non-executive chairman and acting CEO of Cell C, the company had grown its data subscriber base to 120 000 customers between August last year and June 2011.

Room for expansion

However, this appeared to be only the beginning of a positive trend towards ongoing growth in the near future. The company pointed out that, with falling prices of smartphones and tablets, combined with the growth of content providers like Google, South Africa’s demand for mobile broadband was expected to grow by a sizable 83% year-on-year by 2015.

To take advantage of the expected increase in demand, the company was increasing the capacity on its network by adding 42 Mbps capable sites. Cell C explained that Port Elizabeth had already gone live with the increased speeds, while Cape Town was currently being upgraded. Other cities and towns across SA would be upgraded as the demand for greater speed grows.

The company added that its HSPA+ footprint was also on the increase, with fifteen cities and their surrounding areas live on Cell C’s HSPA+ 900 network, which translated to approximately 63% population coverage. In the next three months, the company further expected to launch its network in a number of municipalities across South Africa, including Paarl, Wellington and Kroonstad.

New Initiatives

Further contributing towards its growth was the launch of Cell C’s first BlackBerry products, which the company reported had proved particularly popular with customers. By June this year, Cell C hosted 100 000 Blackberry devices on its network. In June, Cell C further launched its All in One voucher targeted at lower income subscribers. This allowed prepaid and Control Chat subscribers to recharge with voice, SMS and data from a single prepaid voucher at a cost effective price.  The All in One voucher received a positive reception, with 20 000 of these vouchers being sold in its first month.

Show me the money

No doubt bringing a smile to the company’s metaphorical face was the report on its financial performance. On the back of the company’s customer growth, revenue had also increased by 5% year-on-year to R10.2 billion. The company reported an increase of 4% in service revenue to R9.3 billion in 2010, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation remained unchanged at R1.4 billion, due largely to costs relating to the increased infrastructure and rebranding activities.

“As the Board, we are pleased with the performance and progress that Cell C has made over the last year,” concluded Duffy.

In recent news, Cell C reported that it had brought its broadband offerings to the Northern Cape.


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