MTN South Africa will increase prices for its consumer contract customers from February 2026, pushing up monthly bills by an average of a claimed 5.4% as it contends with rising operating and capital spending costs.
Consumer price inflation was 3.6% in October, meaning the average of the MTN price hikes is well above the prevailing inflation rate. Some tariff plans will see even higher increases.
The operator has begun notifying subscribers of the changes, which affect a wide range of its integrated, mobile internet, Flexi and home internet plans. Only consumer post-paid customers are impacted – prepaid users and most enterprise customers are not directly affected this time unless they are on a consumer contract price plan.
Although the average impact on a customer’s total monthly bill is pegged at 5.4%, the real action is in the subscription line item. MTN is raising subscription fees by an average of 9.7%, while out-of-bundle voice rates will go up by an average of 8%.
Other components of the bill are being left alone. MTN says there will be no increases to device instalments, insurance fees, value-added services, out-of-bundle data rates, and add-on voice, SMS and data bundles.
That means the headline 5.4% increase is essentially the blended effect of a steeper hike in subscription and out-of-bundle voice pricing, cushioned by flat device and add-on charges.
The price changes come at a time when headline consumer inflation has eased from the peaks of the early 2020s, but MTN said its own cost base is rising faster than CPI. It pointed to higher electricity costs and the need to secure and repair infrastructure in the face of vandalism, alongside ongoing network expansion and resilience projects.
Across the board
The new pricing runs across a broad swath of plans – from lower-end entry products to premium bundles.
On the high end, customers on the Sky Premium range, for example, will see the following subscription moves:
- Sky Premium Iron: From R799 to R849
- Sky Premium Bronze: From R1 049 to R1 139
- Sky Premium Silver: From R1 299 to R1 409
- Sky Premium Gold: From R1 949 to R2 119
- Sky Premium Platinum: From R2 499 to R2 699
On the more mass-market Yellow Plans, both prices and inclusive voice allocations are changing. Yellow Plans Essential, for instance, rises from R105 to R115/month, with bundled minutes increasing from 25 to 30. At the higher end of this family, Yellow Plans Elite goes from R649 to R695, with minutes rising from 400 to 480.
The Mega Gigs and Mega Talk legacy integrated plans also move up, with Mega Gigs M climbing from R399 to R439, and Mega Talk L moving from R529 to R579. Voice rates in these families typically nudge up by around 10c to 20c/minute depending on the plan.
Read: Why MTN still won’t rule out a deal with Telkom
Mobile internet products are not spared: Mobile Internet Diamond, for example, increases from R479 to R519/month, with local voice call rates moving from R2.25 to R2.45/minute.
MTN’s home internet and fixed-LTE/5G propositions also see noticeable hikes – but they get the biggest “give-back” in return.
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To help justify the increases – and ward off accusations of price gouging – MTN is layering additional benefits on some of its key consumer plans.
MTN is clearly trying to frame the adjustments as a “more-for-more” proposition rather than a simple tariff hike, particularly in the highly contested home connectivity space where it competes not only with other mobile operators but also fibre internet providers.
The handset or device instalment portion of the contract is explicitly excluded from any increase; only the service/price-plan component moves.
MTN is betting that, with added value on popular plans and speed boosts on home products, customers will accept the above-inflation adjustments. But with South African consumers increasingly price-sensitive – and rivals hungry for market share – the real test will be churn: whether subscribers decide to absorb the hikes, trade down to cheaper plans or start looking more seriously at competing offers. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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