Court orders Vodacom to pay 'please call me' South African inventor billions in compensation

Nkosana Makate, a former Vodacom employee has been in a legal tussle with the company since he left in 2004, demanding a R10 billion (Ksh.75 billion) compensation.

According to Quartz Africa, Makate argued that the amount was 5% of the revenue the Vodacom Group had raised from the feature over an 18-year period. 

Vodacom had reportedly offered to pay Makate R47 million (Ksh.354 million) but he argued that he was shortchanged by the company and that it must go back to the drawing board and table a suitable amount.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria said that Vodacom should indeed make Makate a better offer for the concept it termed as ‘brilliant’.

The court ruled that he “is entitled to be paid 5% of the total voice revenue generated from the (Please Call Me) product” from March 2001 to March 2021, and not just for five years as Vodacom was offering.

The teleco giant has now been directed to review the compensation terms in one month, using the working assumption that the average call duration of the return calls is two minutes.

Makate, the court further noted, is entitled to 27% of the number of ‘Please call me's sent daily over the years as being revenue generated by the return calls to the feature.

Headquartered in South Africa, Vodacom is the second largest mobile operator in Africa after MTN Group and has a 35% share in leading local provider Safaricom. 

​​The Please Call Me function is used in 32 countries, including Kenya, enabling users to use USSD to notify recipients to call them back even when they don’t have credit.