Following a promise made by MTN SA CEO Godfrey Motsa on TikTok last year, MTN has launched customised TikTok data bundles for prepaid customers.
The bundles start at R5 for a 100MB daily bundle, which works out at 5 cents per Megabyte. A weekly bundle of 500MB for R20 works out at 4 cents per megabyte. However, the data can be used up fairly quickly, due to the file size of TikTok videos.
Motsa made the promise during a TikTok interview conducted with World Wide Worx managing director and Gadget editor-in-chief Arthur Goldstuck, and streamed on TikTok at the end of October. He also challenged TikTok users to propose the ideal pricing they would be willing to pay for bundles. The video received more than 15,000 views.
TikTok is a short-form video sharing app which, according to DataReportal, has surpassed 1.5 billion downloads and 500 million active users worldwide. World Wide Worx estimates that it has more than 5-million users in South Africa, based on the fact that the most popular South African TikTok account has more than 2-million followers, while several accounts appealing to different market segments have well over 1,5-million followers. Videos using the hashtag #tiktoksouthafrica already have more than 400 million views.
“We have heard our customers and hope that the launch of these bundles will enable them to make the most of what is arguably the fastest growing social platform amongst the youth,” says Jacqui ‘O Sullivan, Corporate Affairs Executive, MTN SA. “We are committed to providing products and solutions that resonate with our customers, and the introduction of our TikTok bundles is another such offering.”
The pricing for MTN TikTok bundles is as follows:
| Bundle Size | Validity Period | Pricing |
| 100MB | Daily | R5 |
| 500MB | Weekly | R20 |
| 1GB | Monthly | R50 |
Users can access the bundles by dialing *136*2# on their smartphones.
The TikTok app is available on iOS and Android stores. According to mobile market research house Sensor Tower, TikTok is by far one of the world’s most downloaded apps in recent years, having surpassed both the one billion and 1.5 billion downloads mark on the App Store and Google Play, respectively, in 2019.