Why telcos are a horrid investment (#564

JSE Direct with Simon Brown

The problem with telcos

I have long said that telcos such as MTN (JSE code: MTN) and Vodacom (JSE code: VOD) is that they are essentially utilities and should be priced as such.

But actually that statement is wrong.

Sure voice (who still calls using voice?) and data are utilities like water and electricity.

BUT the telcos have a problem, capex. Yes we're using more and more data but prices keep coming down, I recently bought an effective 80 GB for little over R400. And all that while capex is increasing. They're busy rolling out 5G but as soon as that's done it'll be tine for 6G. It's a never ending tread mill.

Simon Shares

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