Cell C has achieved continued growth in all the industry key measures and is still aiming for a 25% market share by 2007, says CEO Talaat Laham.
Laham says by the end of 2003, Cell C`s share of the active subscriber market had risen to over 1.9 million, or just over 12% of the total market.
"This was achieved from a zero base in just over two years, against market incumbents that had been entrenched for nearly a decade. Of that growth, 51% is estimated to have come from new users to the market and 49% from other networks," he says.
The company`s total number of subscribers is over 3 million, but Laham says its net base is closer to 2.4 million, which excludes sideways growth from other networks.
Laham says while the user market continues to expand, it is important for Cell C to show growth in market share as well as in its average revenue per user (ARPU).
Of Cell C`s active base of over 1.9 million subscribers at the end of 2003, just over 300 000 or 16% were postpaid subscribers with an ARPU of R409, while prepaid subscribers made up 84% of the base or 1.6 million with an ARPU of R62 - giving a blended ARPU of R110, says Laham.
"An analysis of the subscriber base shows a healthy spread in terms of age. Of Cell C`s prepaid users, two-thirds are older than 24 and a quarter are in the 35 to 49 age group. In the postpaid market, three-quarters of Cell C users are older than 24 and a third are between 35 and 49," he says.
In terms of network roll-out, Cell C had over 1 552 of its own live base stations at the end of 2003, placing it well on track to achieve its goal of 2 334 live base stations by May 2005. Laham says this enabled the traffic carried on Cell C`s own network to rise to over 60%, with the balance catered for within Cell C`s national roaming agreement. The network has achieved a dropped call rate of less than 1%, while its call set-up success rate is 98.5%, which was above expectation.
Laham says Cell C has purchased R4.4 billion of goods and services, R1.5 billion (34%) of which was spent with black economic empowerment (BEE) companies. The staff complement increased by 350 to 1 800 over the past seven months.
"Eighty-five percent of our staff are previously disadvantaged people, and we have a roughly even split between men and women. This, together with our BEE procurement record, confirms Cell C`s status as one of SA`s most diverse companies in terms of supplier and employee demographics," he says.
In terms of Cell C`s contribution to the broader society, Laham says the company`s community service telephony division, with over 5 000 active lines, has promoted access for underserviced areas and encouraged entrepreneurship. Cell C has also invested more than R35 million since November 2001, with the most prominent of the company`s programmes being the take a girl child to work day, Laham says.
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