Cell C ups recharge prices

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 23 Jul 2007

Cell C has increased the minimum recharge amount for prepaid customers to qualify for its Woza Weekend offering.

Woza Weekend offers Cell C postpaid and prepaid customers 120 minutes of free weekend talk-time when they call other Cell C customers on Saturdays and Sundays.

To qualify for this offer, customers now have to recharge with a minimum of R10 during the week preceding the weekend. The new minimum recharge amount applies from today.

"Extraordinary demand and consumption has prompted Cell C to adjust this offer to ensure continued availability," the company says in a media statement.

Cell C chief corporate officer Zeona Motshabi says the response to the offering far exceeded the company's expectations.

"An increase in the minimum recharge amount will enable us to extend the duration of the offering, while maintaining high levels of service and delivery."

Motshabi says customers' response to the offering is also proof of how cost-sensitive cellphone users are and has highlighted the need for value-for-money offerings.

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck previously questioned whether Cell C's offer of free weekend calls was sustainable. The operator launched the revised Woza Weekend offering, where customers can "call for free on weekends", on 20 June.

"The sustainability of the free calls will depend on whether customers also make sufficient paid calls during the week," said Goldstuck.

MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller also questioned whether Vodacom and MTN would respond with a similar offering. In the month since Cell C's initiative was launched, the two giant mobile operators have not announced a similar offering.

"If it was MTN doing it, Vodacom would have to respond, and vice versa," Goldstuck said.

An ITWeb reader notes: "I can't see that Vodacom or MTN can compete with this offering from Cell C. They carry too much of there own traffic on their networks to allow for this type of offering. The cost implications will be too high for them, with a whole lot of lost revenue."

Conditions for postpaid customers remain unchanged, with subscribers only able to access free weekend calls once their free bundled minutes are depleted.