Telkom's prepaid WhatsApp bundles, which include voice and video calling at every tier, have been quietly eroding MTN and Vodacom's prepaid market share in South Africa. MTN's Ebitda fell 10.1% in 2025 and prepaid revenue dropped 2.3%, with its CEO pointing directly at the prepaid market as the problem. The key difference: Telkom's R35 weekly bundle offers unlimited WhatsApp data and calls, while MTN's equivalent capped data at 1.5GB and excluded calling. MTN has now announced a phased rollout adding WhatsApp calling to its bundles. The structural reason Telkom moved first is that its revenue model is data-centric, while MTN and Vodacom still depend heavily on traditional voice revenue, making WhatsApp calling inclusion more costly for them to offer. Vodacom's terms and conditions also show ambiguity around whether calling is truly included in its WhatsApp bundles.
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