Cell C is making its promotional reduction in the cost of calls to selected international markets permanent and has filed the new rates with the Independent Communications Authority of SA. At the same time, it has added Hong Kong and Australia to the new calling plans.
Calls to the US, UK, India, Pakistan, China, Hong Kong and Australia will now all cost 99c/minute, day or night, on per-second billing. That’s the same rate that Cell C charges for national calls.
Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig says the promotion has resulted in call volumes to the affected countries increasing above the company’s “most optimistic expectations”.
“We will announce the rates for all destination countries in the next few weeks as we finalise simplified rates to each country at the best price possible,” Knott-Craig says in a statement.
In recent weeks, Cell C has slashed the price of both contract and prepaid calls in an effort to win over consumers from bigger rivals MTN and Vodacom.
Knott-Craig, a former group CEO at Vodacom, has said he wants to nearly double the operator’s market share from its current 13%. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media