By Slindzelwe Nxumalo | 2022-08-05

MTN Eswatini has reduced their data rates by an average of 41 per cent.
The new rates came into effect yesterday.

This was announced by MTN Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wandile Mtshali during a press briefing held at Mahlalekhukhwini House.  

The CEO said this was their way  of giving back to their clients in helping them overcome the different inflation pressures in the past year. “We have looked at all the different situations that Emaswati are faced with and we thought ‘what can we do to make it easy for Emaswati to get access to communication which is now a basic service they need?” he said.  

He said this data price review would enable their clients to connect more because they believed every Liswati deserved to be connected live anywhere they were located.
“It is important to us to have our customers to connect with their data whether at home or anywhere in the country,” he said.

He mentioned that this price review comes after months of meeting with their regulator Eswatini Communications Commission (ESCCOM) where they presented the different challenges that their customers were facing.

“We worked hand-in-hand with them so we can agree on a price,” he said. Mtshali said one of the challenges they presented was the affordability of data in the country, which to them had been a journey of trying to reduce the price of data for the past years.

“This was purely because regulators assisted us to be able to negotiate with the providers of the internet capacity that we are using,” he said.  

He added that it was important to note that for them the price of production was key for them to be able to reduce data prices because affordability was an era they had been looking at as MTN Eswatini.

He said another thing they looked at was the value for money.

“Emaswati have been paying for data services for many years and it has got to a stage where they want value for money and this is why we introduce this today because to each Lilangeni a client spends on MTN data, we will give them their value for money,” he said.

He said this meant that they were going to give clients more in order for them to be able to do more with their data.

Mtshali said MTN purchased these data capacity from third party providers throughout Southern Africa as well as the country through EPTC and once the regulator has negotiated these priceswith these wholesalers, the company then in turn passed on the benefit to clients.

The new prices, according to the CEO, applied on the Freedom and their Monthly data bundle.

“The new freedom bundles do not expire and they have 100 per cent night data with three days validity,” he said.  Mtshali said the new prices also came with increased volume on selected monthly bundles and the introduction of new bundles.

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