(formely M-Cell Limited) - Business Report 2003 - MTN Group

MTN South Africa
(continued)
as voice Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
For the year, data revenue contributed 3,3% to
total revenue. Although the take-up of data
products is slower than anticipated, we are
confident that these products will contribute to
revenue in the year ahead and have a positive
impact on earnings.
NETWORK
MTN South Africa has further expanded its
network by building 170 new sites to provide
additional capacity rather than extend
geographic coverage, which already amounts to
75% of the country (65% land and 10% sea
coverage) and reaches 96% of the population.
Over the years, MTN South Africa has invested
almost R8 billion in its network, ranging from
switches to cellphone masts, and still spends
approximately R1 billion a year on network
capacity, upgrades, maintenance and limited
geographic network expansion.
Network efficiency, as measured by cumulative
capital expenditure per subscriber, continued to
improve and reduced by 8% to R1 845, from
R2 003 last year.The dropped call rate is low by
international standards, and although we are
optimising current network capacity, we welcome
the additional capacity that will be available from
Government’s recently announced proposals for
use of the 1 800 MHz band to improve network
performance.
EFFICIENCY DRIVE
In addition to focusing on revenue growth, MTN
South Africa is intensifying its programme to
improve efficiencies and cut costs. Over the past
two years we have reduced full-time staff
numbers from 2 300 to about 2 000.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
MTN South Africa aims to differentiate itself from
its competitors primarily through service and
quality. The number of staff dedicated to
servicing customers exceeds 1 200. Customer
satisfaction is continuously monitored through a
Customer Satisfaction Index measured by an
independent research company. Ongoing service
improvement has been noted over the year with
a level of 84% achieved by year-end. In order to
improve our understanding of our customer
needs and to enable us to serve them better, we
have initiated a process of systematically
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MTN BUSINESS REPORT 2003