Telkom’s share price has risen sharply in the past year on optimism that the new leadership team under CEO Sipho Maseko has what it takes to turn the lumbering telecommunications giant around. Since last June, the share price has gained more than 150%. And since its low point in May last year, it has
Browsing: Duncan McLeod
In the mid-1990s, there were fewer telephone connections in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa than there were in Manhattan. What a difference two decades has made: by the end of this year, there will be more than 635m active telephone subscriptions on the sub-continent. That number is twice the population of
What was the president thinking? Last Sunday, Jacob Zuma sent shockwaves through South Africa’s technology industry by dumping his hardworking communications minister, Yunus Carrim – arguably the most competent person to fill the portfolio since the 1990s – and splitting the ministry in
This week, remarkable news emerged from an upmarket Johannesburg suburb. The community of Parkhurst, through its residents’ association, announced it had issued a request for proposals from telecommunications service providers to connect all houses and businesses in
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
Two weeks ago, Icasa provisionally awarded licences to five new subscription television broadcasters. It hopes the move will help crack open what has become a highly concentrated market that is now thoroughly dominated by one operator, MultiChoice. The communications regulator will be hoping that it is more successful in this
In the days following this week’s general election – the most interesting since 1994 – the focus will shift to who president Jacob Zuma will name to his new cabinet. Whatever shuffling he decides to do, he should leave the communications portfolio in the hands
Should we be worried about Cell C? Despite a recent high court ruling that was at least partly in the mobile operator’s favour, noises coming out of the company aren’t exactly painting a rosy picture. There are several reasons for concern, chief among them the ability of the company to engage in a protracted price war while ensuring it
If there was anyone still doubting that the price war, triggered in part by communications regulator Icasa’s cuts in call termination rates, is starting to take its toll on South Africa’s mobile industry, they would have been disabused of that notion this week with the news that the Reunert-owned Nashua Mobile is to close down. As many as 600 people
Korea’s Samsung Electronics this week began selling its latest flagship handset, the highly anticipated Galaxy S5. Early reviews are already in and, although largely positive, some reviewers are asking if the insane pace of innovation in the smartphone industry in