Is MTN getting dual-Sim phone religion, leaving Vodacom, the market leader, as the only operator with an aversion to such devices?

It appears the operator is at least toying with the idea, announcing on Thursday that it would range the new, high-end Huawei Mate S smartphone on its network.

It’s the first dual-Sim high-end smartphone that it will sell to end users. “In the past, dual-Sim handsets were mainly limited to low-cost devices,” the company said in a statement.

Until now, Cell C has been the biggest promoter of dual-Sim handsets in South Africa. Vodacom and MTN have tended to shun them as they encouraged users to route calls or use data from smaller networks — which sometimes offered cheaper calling plans or per-megabyte rates for accessing the Internet.

“MTN for the first time will be offering a high-end dual-Sim smartphone to cater for an increasing number of customers who have multiple Sim cards,” the operator said.

The LTE-compatible Huawei Mate S, which retails through MTN for R10 799 outside of a contract, has a 5,5-inch display, 13-megapixel main camera, a fingerprint reader and a 64-bit octa-core processor. MTN will sell the 64GB version of the device.

MTN said the Mate S would prove “handy for customers who are travelling” and those who carry both work and personal Sim cards, who will no longer have to carry two phones.

“The decision to range this smartphone is in response to the feedback we have received from our customers for a high-end smartphone that caters to their usage patterns,” said MTN South Africa sales and marketing executive Larry Annetts in the statement.

“Having operations across Africa and the Middle East, we are acutely aware of behavioural patterns across different markets. Our customers have requested a handset they can use when travelling by having access to a local Sim card when they are out of the country while they still retain their primary Sim card.” — (c) 2015 NewsCentral Media