MTN and Vodacom hiking contract prices — how they compare

MTN and Vodacom will both have introduced price hikes to their postpaid services by this time next month.

MTN announced these changes in December 2023 with their new prices already in effect, whereas Vodacom’s adjustments will kick in on 1 April 2024.

Vodacom’s monthly subscription prices are going up by an average of 8%, while MTN’s increased by 8.8%.

The operators provided varying reasons for these price increases but enhancing network reliability was a key focus area.

Vodacom said it experienced a large amount of infrastructural vandalism, increased operational costs, high inflation, and load-shedding — all of which contributed to the price adjustments.

MTN said increased demand had created the need for price hikes to enhance network resilience and deliver a quality network experience.

The hikes follow a pattern of inflation-related increases over the past few years.

Although both Vodacom and MTN’s average increases were higher than the 6% inflation rate of 2023, the operators said customers’ total increases would average to 4.6% and 4.3%, respectively.

This is because all cost items, such as insurance premiums, device fees, itemised spending, and out-of-bundle spending, remain unchanged.

The average increase in MTN’s data-only contracts saw a hike of 8.3%, whereas Vodacom’s contracts went up by 7.8%.

All Vodacom TopUp bundles remain at the same price as the regular plans, while Vodacom’s Home Internet contracts received a price hike without additional data being added to the contract.

This was not the case with their Red Flexi and Red Flexi Legacy plans, which received increased airtime aligning with their price hikes.

Red Integrated and VIP plans also had additional data added to the contracts.

MTN kept all of its contract data allocations the same.

MTN plans cheaper on anytime data, but Vodacom offers more minutes and SMSs

We compared the new prices of Vodacom and MTN’s mobile data contracts to see which offered the best value for money.

A like-for-like comparison was difficult due to the operators having vastly different allocations of data, voice minutes, and SMSs.

MTN’s contracts were generally more affordable than Vodacom’s — at least when it came to anytime data.

However, MTN’s contracts did not have SMSs included and Vodacom’s comparable packages had more voice minutes.

In addition, Vodacom’s plans included nighttime data equivalent to the anytime data allocations, whereas MTN’s additional data was in the form of social and video data.

The table below shows the allocations and prices of comparable data and voice packages from Vodacom and MTN.