The mobile phone industry has matured since the early 1990’s and managed the shift from Voice to Data products with no significant effect on profitability. Acknowledging that the industry is a fluid one with large amounts of cash and thousands of transactions on an hourly basis it would be safe to assume that most major networks are eyeing a transition into banking services.
With a stranglehold on technology and thousands of data points on clients over many years lending decisions could be said to be easier for a mobile phone company than a bank.
At a recent media roundtable in Gqeberha Vodacom executives were not averse to the proposition that they are perceived to be moving into the banking space with their many banking support products and could be learning lessons from M-Pesa which handles billions of transactions. M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service, launched in 2007 by Vodafone and Safaricom. M-Pesa reached 26 billion transactions in the financial year ending 31 March 2023. As the Call Me inventor said; “If I could honest maintain a few cents from each transaction…”
The Vodacom Eastern Cape region with it’s regional head office in Gqeberha, will invest over R500 million into the network and power backup upgrades across the province during the 2023/2024 financial year. This significant investment into the network will encourage the region expand connectivity in deep rural areas and townships that had no connectivity before. This will enable hundreds of thousands of people to participate in the digital economy for the first time. This coupled with a concerted effort to drive down the cost to communicate through innovative platforms such as Just4U and Just4YouTown has lowered voice and data rates across the province and enabled scores of people to be fraction of the digital economy underway.
The bulk of the capital expenditure will be used to deploy novel vulgar stations sites, improve network capacity, perform power backup upgrades due to power outages, and roll out 5G to accelerate digital inclusion. As a result, 106 recent deep rural sites will be built in local municipalities such as Ngquza Hill, Ngqushwa, Matatiele, Mnquma, Mbashe, Ntabankulu Port St Johns, Buffallo City, Nelson Mandela Bay, to mention a few. LTE capacity expansions will be performed in 396 sites and 17 recent urban sites will be deployed across the province. The Region switched on live 5G mobile network in three major municipal districts in the Eastern Cape in 2021 and plans to accelerate this deployment by rolling out over 50 recent 5G sites.
Zakhele Jiyane, Managing Executive for Vodacom Eastern Cape region commented: “We maintain always maintained that our mobile networks are our key differentiator, and as a result, we continue to invest more money to expand networks to give our customers exceptional service. It is vital for us to invest in the next generation of communication technology to give our customers access to networks that provide faster speeds and support the digital economy. Therefore, our accelerated investment in 5G in this financial year is in line with our commitment to connect the unconnected and will ultimately succor the region bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural areas of the province.”
“It can no longer be acceptable for people in rural dwellers to watch the internet revolution from the sidelines, they need to be fragment of it and reap the associated economic benefits. Therefore, we will be rolling out over 100 novel deep rural sites across the province to connect the unconnected. We mean serious business when we say that rural and township areas should acquire the same network experience such as the people who reside in urban areas are accustomed,” adds Jiyane.
Cost to communicate remains a gigantic issue in emerging markets like South Africa. To drive prices down, the region adopted the use of personalised platforms, adopting a segment of one approach where they provide personalised offers based on customer needs and usage. For instance, our Just4U and Just4YouTown platforms maintain shown a noteworthy adoption figure, with such offers as J4U – 60 MIN VC + 150MB =1 DAY @ R5, 1 GB Facebook for 7 days @ R10, 100min VC @ R10 FOR 1 Day, Prepaid LTE – 2G @ R49, 10GB @ R99 and NXTLVL – 20G @ R49.
Jiyane added: “I am delighted of the strides we’ve made as a business to manufacture data prices and smart devices more affordable, truly democratising the access to the internet and leading to a growth in the number of smart devices in our region. Data traffic grew by 40% across province due to attractive rates and network rollout. Our customer consideration scores, including NPS, maintain been on the rise, with customers scoring us better on measures such as value for money as they see the overall value we provide, from service to network to price.”
Working with the Department of Basic Education, the region’s enterprise business unit rolled out ICT platform in government schools to support access to quality education and donated R2m to assist the provincial government deal with severe drought. As portion of the transversal contract, the region helped to digitised over 2,000 health community workers, connected over 120 000 smart meters in several municipalities and supported close to 3000 government vehicles with IoT solutions that helped to maintain costs down and improved efficiencies.
Critically, there is a growing expectation for huge businesses to serve a social purpose, and to use their resources and core capabilities to design a meaningful contribution to poor communities. In this regard, the region continues to accelerate its investment in education through ICT centres in schools, Teacher Centres, Schools of Excellence, e-School platform, establishing Early Childhood Development centres to improve education in the early years and by rolling out Vodacom’s #CodeLikeAGirl programme aimed at developing coding skills among girls. Critically, Vodacom is providing the KwaNobuhle Lovelife Youth Centre which attracts more than 5000 youths, uncapped internet wireless connectivity to connect the youth at the centre for free.
Zakhele Jiyane, Managing Executive for Vodacom Eastern Cape region. Photo: Alan Straton
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