The attacks on rivals keep coming as SA’s third mobile operator moves to build market share. Cell C has now taken the wraps off a weekend promotion that offers prepaid users 100% of their weekly recharge value back in airtime for use on weekends.
However, the free airtime applies only to on-network (Cell C to Cell C) calls and for text messages, multimedia messages and data. Cell C has 13% market share, meaning most calls from its network are to Vodacom and MTN numbers. Cell C’s move is clearly an effort to push up utilisation of its network over weekends and to encourage the growth in on-network traffic, which doesn’t attract interconnection charges from the other operators.
The operator says its “free weekend special” prepaid promotion allows 99 Cents For Real prepaid customers to get R20 of airtime value for free, for example, if they recharge with R20 any day of the week. “All recharges performed in the week accumulate towards total bonus airtime to be used over the weekend,” it says.
The airtime can be used to make on-network Cell C calls, send SMSes and MMSes or for Internet data usage. Premium-rated services and bundle recharges do not qualify for the bonus airtime. However, consumers will not have to opt in to benefit from the airtime.
The company says there is no minimum recharge value required to qualify for the extra weekend airtime and no maximum limit to the amount of bonus airtime available.
At weekends, the bonus airtime will be used up first. Bonus airtime accumulated during the week that is not used over the weekend will expire permanently at midnight on that Sunday.
The promotion will be available from 15 October and is slated to end on 13 January. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media