Reporting a highly impressive operational performance on Wednesday, NTH South Africa revealed that it has witnessed a 15.4 percent increase in the number of its total subscribers; with the notable growth chiefly resulting from a 15 percent increase - to 20.9 million - in pre-paid subscriber figures.

In a Friday statement, Africa's biggest mobile-phone operator MTN Group Ltd. (MTN) said that an internal investigation, into the procedure which the company had followed for obtaining a wireless-service license in Iran back in 2005, has revealed that it had not violated any laws to secure the license.

In a strategic announcement made on Monday, MTN Uganda said that it intends deploying a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network in the country this year; with the move to make the service provider the leader in offering high-speed LTE technology in the East African region.

In a move which marks the fulfillment of MTN's earlier commitment to improve the MTN Play experience of the users and to deliver digital products and services, the company has recently launched a revamped MTN Play content portal - www. mtnplay. com - which brings along a number of enhancements.

According to investment analyst Nadim Mohamed, who is a partner at First Avenue Investment Management, the year 2013 will probably be a more challenging year for two of South Africa's operators - MTN and Vodacom - even though they have "good leadership and assets."