South African mobile operator Vodacom says 40 percent of its 30.6 million customers in South Africa are smartphone users, a figure which is “increasing rapidly”.
Of its customer base, Vodacom said it had 24.7 million on prepaid and 5.9 million on contract.
Speaking today at a media briefing, Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group chief executive, said: “In the last quarter we added a half a million smartphones. We have 14 million people using data, and that’s growing quite rapidly.”
Vodacom chief consumer officer Phil Patel said approximately 70 per cent of new contracts were for smartphones. HumanIPO reported earlier today Vodacom was amongst operators slashing the prices of prepaid tariffs, with the aim of encouraging more uptake.
“The idea now is to push as many smartphones into people’s hands,” Joosub said. “I always used to make a joke with my staff to say people can’t use data through a braai stand. Now you want to get people to use data, you had better give them a data device. So stop giving away free braai stands and give people a better phone.
“We are actually putting a bigger focus in terms of the number of smartphones that we are driving out, both in prepaid and in contract,” he said.
