This appears to be on purpose
According to Cell C’s most recent financial results, the struggling mobile network operator lost over 4.5 million customers in a year and three months. Cell C, on the other hand, has stated that it is purposefully focusing on shedding low-value customers while retaining its more profitable customer base.
Cell’s results for its fiscal year 2022, which ended in December 2022, were delayed by several months. It released these results, along with its 2023 year-to-date results, on Monday.
Cell C’s most recent financial report indicated that it would have 12.79 million customers by the end of June 2022. By the end of December 2022, that figure had dropped to 10.6 million, a loss of 2.19 million customers in six months
Nine months later, the figure had fallen by another 2.4 million customers. Cell C’s customer base fell by 4.59 million between June 2022 and September 2023, a 36% drop in 15 months.
Cell C said it wanted to “rationalize its subscriber base and retain profitable customers” as part of its turnaround strategy over the last few years. This is intended to boost Cell’s average revenue per user (ARPU), which has risen slightly in the last year and a half.
While the company’s blended ARPU fell from R84 to R74 per customer between June and December 2022, it had risen to R80 per customer by September 2023.
Cell C vs. the Others:
For several years, Cell C was South Africa’s third-largest mobile network operator, but Telkom’s mobile subscribers surpassed Cell C’s sometime in late 2020. Telkom had 14.93 million customers at the end of 2020, while Cell C had 9.32 million.
Despite severe financial difficulties, Cell C expanded its customer base over the next year and a half. However, it was unable to catch up with Telkom, which has since increased its lead to more than 10 million subscribers. While Telkom’s market share has increased by about half a percentage point from last year, Cell C’s has decreased from 11.42% in June 2022 to 7.4% by September 2023.
Neither operator has a market share comparable to Vodacom and MTN, which account for more than 75% of mobile subscribers on the four major networks. Rain, the other major player in the mobile space, does not regularly share subscriber numbers. The operator was expected to reach a million subscribers by 2022, according to Daily Investor.
The table below compares Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Cell C’s most recent subscriber numbers as of September 2023:
Mobile network | Number of subscribers | Subscriber market share |
Vodacom (September 2023) | 47.26 million | 42.75% |
MTN (September 2023) | 36.80 million | 33.29% |
Telkom (September 2023) | 18.29 million | 16.54% |
Cell C (September 2023) | 8.20 million | 7.4% |
Total | 110.55 million | 100% |