About 2.5 million people have browsed through the Black catalogue to date, Cell C said of its video entertainment platform on Tuesday alongside its half-year results to 30 June 2018.

Black, which was launched in November 2017, has 260 000 customers on a free trial, with 60 000 transactions completed to date, the mobile operator said. Current user logins are 80 000.

“Black is gaining traction among its key target audiences,” Cell C said in an investor presentation published on listed shareholder Blue Label Telecoms’ website on Tuesday morning.

“Black is the top streaming service for the DLM 3 market — average Internet users, which represent a large portion of the population in South Africa,” the company said, citing research from BMIT. “In the DLM 5 segment — high-tech users — the awareness of Black has grown by 14%.”

It said there has been a “sharp increase” in content consumption since Cell C zero-rated data access for Black content streaming.

Cell C customers make up 70% of subscribers on Black, with the remaining 30% belonging to other networks.

The company did not provide revenue or profit numbers for Black.

Cell C reduced its net loss after tax in the first half of the 2018 financial year by 33% to R645-million on the back of an 11% improvement in service revenue to R6.9-billion. Total revenue rose 5% to R7.8-billion. — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media