African ICT market analysts BMI-TechKnowledge has released the results from their latest research, entitled Top 350 Telecoms Spenders. The report shows that even three years down the line since initial second national operator (SNO) announcements in 2001, close to 50% of these 350 — and other large corporate respondents — indicated that they would consider switching at least some of their telecoms business to the SNO should the service offerings be competitive.
The telecoms spent R7,1-billion in 2004, with an average spend of about R1,7-million per month for each respective business. BMI-T analyst Tertia Smit expects their telecoms spending to grow more slowly in the future, reaching R8,6-billion by 2007.
The ICT research house expects the SNO to roll-out its long-awaited network in the second half of 2005.
Smit said that just under half of the respondents would use the SNO as a second source in negotiation with current service providers.
”Many of them, however, have SLAs [service level agreements] with existing operators that they will have to fulfil,” Smit said.
She said any protracted absence of the operator would mean the switching propensity may be transferable to other alternative network service providers, such as value added network service (vans) providers and internet service providers (ISPs).
The report delivers a detailed analysis of the market. It says most of the top spenders use more than R1-million a month on voice and data services, fixed and mobile. This also included managed network services, including ISPs and vans providers.
These spenders are likely to negotiate favourable terms with suppliers in the future due to the changing landscape, as a result of liberalisation. – I-Net Bridge