Briefing Paper

Update: State of Prepaid Market in South Africa Submission to the Parliament of South Africa on “The Cost to Communicate in South Africa”

Pent up demand for internet service has driven strong growth in data revenues for
operators throughout Africa. Traditional voice and SMS revenues have, in turn, been shrinking but still make a significant contribution to operator revenues. Operators are launching promotional and personalised data products as a means of retaining and gaining revenue. New pricing strategies and products available on the market have clearly moved away from a single tariff or price for a single service to variable value bundles of services to meet the diverse needs of users. This tariff innovation makes the effective price of products way below the price of IGB as advertised for particular customer and increasing difficult to measure and compare.