Best mobile deal in South Africa

MTN SuperFlex is the best-value mobile product in South Africa for people who need data and voice minutes, with unlimited SMS messages thrown in for good measure.

Launched in September 2023, MTN SuperFlex offers subscribers a substantial data allocation, unlimited minutes, and unlimited SMS messages.

It is also month-to-month, requiring no contracts or credit vetting.

A 10GB MTN SuperFlex package costs R299 per month, 15GB is R399, and 20GB is R479.

While the service was initially limited to new numbers and physical SIMs, MTN quickly expanded it to eSIMs and allowed users on other networks to port their numbers in.

Sign-up is handled entirely online. Customers place their orders and make monthly payments using their debit or credit card.

From there, everything is handled through the MTN app, including providing the necessary RICA documentation to activate the account.

In a word, it’s seamless.

While the product does have some limitations on how the unlimited voice minutes and SMS messages may be used, these are mostly sensible and do not involve set usage thresholds.

MTN SuperFlex is designed for use in a smartphone by a person. Any other usage is restricted and may result in a suspension.

The unlimited voice minutes and SMSes can be used across all local networks for standard-rate calls and messages.

Any international and premium-rated calls and SMSes are charged at prevailing rates.

Therefore, iPhone users must load a small amount of airtime for iMessage and Facetime to send an international SMS to register with Apple’s servers.

The final caveat is that MTN SuperFlex is technically a promotional price plan.

However, MTN has already extended its validity period once, with the offer’s last day moved from 29 February 2024 to 31 October 2024 earlier this year.

Unless something goes badly wrong with the service or its profitability, MTN is expected to continue selling it.

MTN’s launch of SuperFlex was a bombshell moment for South Africa’s cellular industry, which had fiercely protected voice call revenues.

SuperFlex signalled that mobile voice was no longer a premium product, except in a commercial context like call centres.

MTN sells 10GB of anytime data on a month-to-month basis for around R150. Therefore, with its R299 per month SuperFlex package, MTN effectively said that unlimited voice calls were equivalent to 10GB of data.

This was a huge departure from previous products offering uncapped mobile voice calling, which were generally upwards of R1,000 per month.

It’s worth noting that other operators and service providers also offer cheaper 10GB to 20GB mobile data options for those who don’t need unlimited voice minutes or SMS messages.

However, SuperFlex is perfect for someone who wants a combination of data and minutes that allows them to not worry about how much airtime they have left.

It is South Africa’s first worry-free mobile plan for less than R500 per month.

In developing SuperFlex, MTN clearly took notes from mobile virtual network operators like Afrihost Airmobile on great online and app user experience.

It then combined this with a great value-for-money product.

Vodacom responded immediately by quietly launching “PowerFlex”.

Curiously, Vodacom’s PowerFlex deals are all more expensive than MTN SuperFlex, and the company has not aggressively marketed the packages.

The following table summarises how MTN SuperFlex compares to Vodacom PowerFlex.

It also includes Afrihost’s well-priced AirMobile service to illustrate how MTN SuperFlex’s prices compare.

AirMobile charges an excellent rate of R150 for 10GB of mobile data on a month-to-month package.

For our comparison, we added R150 of airtime to the AirMobile package, allocating half to voice minutes and half to SMS messages.

We calculated how many minutes and messages this could buy using AirMobile’s published rates of 64c per minute (billed per second) for calls and 26c per SMS.