Vodacom South Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa: New CEO for Vodacom

Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile operator, has announced the appointment of Pieter Uys as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Uys, currently chief operating officer, will take over from Alan Knott-Craig as CEO from 1 October 2008. Vodacom South Africa reported 24.821 subscribers by 31 March 2008, equivalent to a market share of 55%. "We face exciting, yet challenging times," Vodacom said in its 2007/8 annual report, adding, "We will nurture and grow our traditional mobile telephony business in five countries of operation, while entering the wider world of providing convergence infrastructure and services."

Significance: The key development facing Vodacom is the possible sale of a greater stake to Vodafone. Telkom, the South African fixed-line incumbent, holds a 50% stake in Vodacom and Vodafone owns the remaining 50%, after increasing its stake from 35% in 2006 for 16 billion rand (US$2.43 billion). On 30 May 2008, Telkom said that it had received an offer from Vodafone to acquire a greater portion of the operator. Meanwhile, Telkom, under its new fixed-mobile strategy, has announced that it plans to launch a W-CDMA fixed-wireless and mobile data network of its own.