South Africans talked more on their phones in 2025 than ever before, but their mobile providers made less money out of it.
National voice traffic surged 21.5 to 88.6 billion minutes, according to Icasa's latest State of the ICT Sector report . Yet mobile services revenue fell ZAR 10.4 B USD 635 M. Total mobile revenue dropped nearly 8 to ZAR 122 B USD 7.4 B. Every major category took a hit. Voice revenue down 2. Data revenue down 3. Roaming revenue down 12, and text messaging saw a 38 collapse in a single year.
The culprit is WhatsApp. South Africans have migrated their calls, their chats and their group banter to Meta's platform. They are talking more, just not paying for the privilege. "Declines in SMS and voice revenue are consistent with long-term substitution towards OTT messaging and calling applications," Icasa said in the report.
