South Africa, Feb. 7 -- Challenger Brands to Watch is our annual shortlist of the challenger brands we expect to make a huge impact in the year ahead. We handpick our challengers looking at various criteria including innovation, market differentiation, perceived momentum, scale and anticipated impact.

In South Africa, data prices have historically been excessively high, and the majority of the population have had to resort to disproportionately high rates for data to access the internet. This, coupled with data expiration issues, left a gap in the mobile communications category that begged to be filled.

The top two mobile communications players in South Africa, MTN and Vodacom, collectively own more than 80% of the market. The third pla...