The penetration of internet locally should reach at least 50 percent over the next nine years, MTN South Africa managing director Karel Pienaar said yesterday.
This goal is more than eight times the current internet penetration of 5 percent in a population of about 50 million people. South Africa’s data growth would, however, be driven by cellphone data, he said.
“Whereas the jury was out previously now it is very clear that mobile infrastructure will be the one to deliver growth. It is more convenient and more cost-effective,” Pienaar said.
MTN has spent the past two years rebuilding its infrastructure in anticipation of a data boom and invested more than R5 billion in rolling out its fibre-optic network. Investment in low-cost smartphones is also expected to drive higher data demand.
MTN and rival Vodacom are seemingly neck-and-neck in the data revolution.
Pienaar said of its 20 million subscribers, between 9 million and 10 million were data users and had “bought a bundle or were using it in some form or shape”.
In the year to March Vodacom’s data customers grew 34.6 percent to 9 million.
Pienaar said in the past 18 months MTN had seen more than 40 percent revenue growth from data and 60 percent growth in data traffic.
A year ago data volumes surpassed voice volumes on MTN’s network as customers spent less on calls.
A year ago it had 1.6 million smartphones on its network. Pienaar said this figure was now edging towards 3 million.
“If I sat here 18 months ago I would be selling a couple of laptops and the first few smartphones. Now today 60 percent of the phones we sell in our branded channel are smartphones. Close to half of my customers have smartphones.”
Industry analysts predict that the fast-growing media tablet would create a cellphone data boom.
Research firm Gartner says annual global tablet shipments will increase from less than 18 million in 2010 to 294 million in 2015.
MTN’s share price gained 0.57 percent to R142.30 on the JSE yesterday. - Asha Speckman