MTN South Africa is increasing its consumer post-paid subscription fees by an average of 5.1%, blaming a “challenging market environment” for the need to push through the price hikes.
The new prices will come into effect on 1 April.
“The impact of the inflationary environment has resulted in increased input costs, driven by load shedding and rising fuel usage, which has been further aggravated by ongoing battery theft and vandalism,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Describing the increases as “unavoidable”, MTN said it will continue to invest in its network, including in battery roll-out to mitigate against the impact of load shedding.
“In some instances, the actual subscription fee increase may be higher than the average of 5.1%, with a maximum of 7.4%. This mainly represents a R10 increase from R135 to R145 on our Mega XS price plans,” MTN said.
Voice call rates per minute will also be increased on average by 4%, or a maximum of 10c/minute. Out-of-bundle data and SMS rates have been reduced to 25c/MB and 35c/message, respectively.
Instalments on handsets and other devices as part of contract deals will not be affected by the increase.
“We want to assure customers we are working very hard to build the resilience of our network with batteries and generators and added security to guard against theft and vandalism,” the company said.
Details about all of the adjusted prices are included in the MTN-supplied table below. –NewsCentral Media