Neotel divulges subscriber figures

By Candice Jones for Neotel
Johannesburg, 27 Jun 2008

Neotel, which has traditionally been mum on its competitive figures, revealed ballpark subscriber numbers at a media briefing this week.

"April this year was the last count for consumer services, and we had in the region of 300 subscribers," said Stefano Mattielo, the second national operator's head of enterprise business group and the Network Operations Centre.

The company also has around 150 enterprise clients connected to its network operating centre. Mattiello would not commit on the number of lines that Neotel has connected for customers. "It is difficult to say exactly how many lines are in the enterprise business."

The company initiated its consumer services last month and its business services were officially launched in November last year, almost two years after the operator was licensed.

Huge expectations

Neotel previously indicated it expects to gain 50 000 consumer customers by March next year.

Neotel's PR manager Zinhle Modiselle said the response to the company's consumer services has been positive. "There has been a keen interest for all types of product packages.

"We have had a significant amount of applications and requests for services from all across the region," she added.

Mattiello noted that Neotel currently does not have offerings dedicated to the SME market. However, this will be introduced soon.

In the meantime, Neotel provides services to the SME market through a combination of offerings picked from both the consumer and enterprise units, he said.

Rajeev Sinha, Neotel's products senior manager, noted that Neotel engages in extensive research to determine customer needs before developing a product. Neotel also aims to be different and provide products that are unique to the South African market.

Employee growth

Meanwhile, Neotel is seeing strong growth in its employee numbers in response to the company's growth.

The company has over 400 employees, excluding the 550 employees that were inherited from Transtel. Each month, more employees join Neotel, expanding the team even further, said Modiselle.

The integration of Transtel into Neotel began on 1 April, following the approval of the R230 million transaction by the Competition Tribunal.