Vodacom South Africa is hiking the price of its post-paid contracts and its fibre broadband services, beginning on 1 April.
The telecommunications operator said the average adjustments amount to 4.6%, which it said is lower than the 5.3% increase in headline consumer inflation recorded in January.
However, post-paid tariffs and recurring and once-off bundles will be adjusted by an average of 8% from May — well above the consumer inflation rate and two percentage points above the upper band of the South African Reserve Bank’s inflation target — while fibre customers can expect a 5% average increase on “selected fibre plans”, Vodacom said.
“The decision comes at a time when Vodacom continues to invest heavily into maintaining network resilience to deliver an enhanced customer experience and in response to various challenges faced by the industry that have resulted in increased operational costs for operators, including base station vandalism and battery theft, load shedding, currency weakness, and high inflation,” the company said in a statement.
“We are fully alert to the financial pressures on customers caused by the high cost of living and remain committed to delivering innovations that enhance the value we deliver to customers to help alleviate cost of living pressures,” it added. Vodacom said it is also offering extra data (up to 11% more) to customers on some of its premium Red plans.
