In addition to its bid to buy a stake in Tunisie Telecom, MTN Group this month also looks set to unveil expansion plans into the Southern African market of Botswana. Sources close to MTN intimated on Tuesday that the South African cellular services provider was apparently planning to enter the Botswana market, where Mascom Wireless and Orange Botswana mobile operators serve 576 000 customers.

Communications Users’ Association of South Africa (Cuasa) new chairperson Edwin Thompson says the organisation will continue to lobby for legislative and regulatory pressure to yield effective competition in the telecommunications and other information and communications technology (ICT) sectors.

While describing its rates as "some of the lowest", Saudi-owned Cell C has entered the cellular-pricing fray by enhancing its "Friends and Family" product to provide its customers with the lowest tariffs in the market. Cell C’s enhanced offering follows Vodacom’s and MTN’s recent price-cutting moves.

South African information and communications technology company Allied Technologies (Altech) posted a 15,3% rise in headline earnings per share to 181 cents for the six-month period ended August this year, from 157 cents reported a year earlier. Revenue jumped by 11% to R2,933-billion.

The South African government-owned State Information Technology Agency’s net profit after tax for the period ended March this year jumped by 69% to R59,303-million from R35,085-million reported previously, Sita CEO Mavuso Msimang said on Friday. Revenue grew by 14,5% to R2,636-billion.

The South African government will not interfere in Transnet’s bid to find a broad-based empowerment partner to buy the parastatal’s 5% stake in the MTN Group, it emerged on Wednesday — a day after Transnet announced it had ended months of talks with Umthunzi Telecoms Consortium.

Listed media group Primedia on Monday announced the first step in a new black economic empowerment (BEE) deal whereby the economic value of the stake held by BEE shareholder the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC) will increase from approximately 6,7% to about 20%.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) last week approved Telkom’s new tariff structure in spite of the rise in installation and rental fees, it was announced on Monday. The government is planning to hold a second colloquium on telecommunications pricing next month.

Fixed-line consumers will not enjoy lower telecommunication costs on September 1, as Telkom is yet to reply to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa) correspondence in which the regulator asked the company to rework some of its proposals, it emerged on Wednesday.

Global positive sentiment looks set to help the JSE start the week on a firm footing, despite a slightly firmer rand. By 8.45am, near-dated all share index futures (Alsis) were 73 points higher at 14 195 after 49 contracts had changed hands, while industrial index futures (Indis) were untraded after finishing at 11 616. The rand was […]