Author: Duncan McLeod

Vodacom intends increasing group capital expenditure by 20% in the financial year ended March 2015. It proposes increasing its capex investment from R10,8bn in 2014 to R13bn this year. However, it has warned that the planned investment could be affected negatively. “This will be informed by the final outcome of the mobile termination rate

After many months of negotiation, Vodacom and Neotel are finally getting into bed with each other. Vodacom has reached an agreement with Neotel’s shareholders to buy 100% of the company, including shareholder loans against it, for a total cash consideration equivalent to an enterprise value of R7bn. The deal, if it gets the necessary regulatory

Cell C this week signalled it will not back down an inch as the price war between South Africa’s mobile operators intensifies. The mobile operator, South Africa’s third largest after Vodacom and MTN, upped the stakes with its bigger rivals by cutting its prepaid rate from 99c to 66c/minute (billed per second) on a promotional basis

Come join us as your hosts, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg, tackle another week’s technology news in the TalkCentral podcast. In the show this week, they chat about Cell C’s move to cut headline prepaid rates to 66c/minute and what that means for the company and for the industry. Also in the podcast this week are

MTN plans to spend US$3bn (about R31bn) on its network in Nigeria over the next three years to improve quality of service. The company has previously had quality problems with its network in the West African country. According to website BDlive, the Nigerian Communications Commission banned MTN and two other mobile operators

Altron intends hanging tough with subsidiary Altech Autopage. The diversified technology group’s CEO, Robbie Venter, says it has no plans to sell Autopage or its million-strong subscriber base after rival Reunert announced in April that it would sell Nashua Mobile’s base. The decision by Reunert means Autopage will soon be the last

Telkom will consider employment equity in its latest round of planned job cuts, which could affect more than 2 600 management-level employees, a report said on Wednesday. This means that partially state-owned and JSE-listed telecommunications operator “plans to target white, male employees when making job cuts”, according to

Shares in South African-headquartered media, communications and e-commerce giant Naspers leapt higher on Wednesday on the back of strong results from China’s Tencent, in which it holds an approximate one-third stake. Naspers was trading up by more than 8,5%

Vodacom, the top-rated company in the Reputation Institute’s annual National RepTrak Pulse survey last year, has fared “particularly poorly” in the 2014 edition of the survey, falling to sixth position and behind rival MTN. The survey found that there has been a “bloodbath” in company reputations, with the exception

Altron appears to be firing on all cylinders. The technology group, which owns Altech, Bytes and Powertech, has reported a 49% improvement in normalised headline earnings per share on the back of a 12% improvement in revenue. It has hiked its dividend to 80c/share, from 60c in 2013. The strong performance was underpinned