by Ekrem Duman | Aug 26, 2026 | South Africa Company Stories, South Africa Telecoms & Media
⚡ TL;DRTelkom went from state fixed-line monopoly to a distant fourth in mobile, watching the business it was built on collapse as South Africans abandoned landlines — and discovered that its remaining value lay in the infrastructure beneath the failed...
by Ekrem Duman | Aug 26, 2026 | South Africa Company Stories, South Africa Telecoms & Media
⚡ TL;DRMultiChoice built African pay television through DStv, holding it together with exclusive live sport that streaming services could not easily replicate — and then faced the squeeze that has hit pay TV worldwide: affluent subscribers migrating to...
by Ekrem Duman | Aug 26, 2026 | South Africa Company Stories, South Africa Telecoms & Media
⚡ TL;DRNaspers turned a thirty-two million dollar investment in a Chinese messaging start-up into a stake worth over a hundred billion dollars, and then spent two decades trying to solve the resulting problem: a holding company whose market value was...
by Ekrem Duman | Aug 26, 2026 | South Africa Company Stories, South Africa Telecoms & Media
⚡ TL;DRVodacom took the opposite path from MTN: dominate South Africa, expand carefully into neighbouring markets, stay close to a global parent for capital and technology — a lower-risk strategy that produced South Africa’s most profitable telecom...
by Ekrem Duman | Aug 26, 2026 | South Africa Company Stories, South Africa Telecoms & Media
⚡ TL;DRMTN built Africa’s largest mobile network by entering markets other operators considered too risky — Nigeria, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan — and then spent a decade managing the consequences: a record regulatory fine, trapped...
