Vodacom likely paying Please Call Me inventor compensation in the hundreds of millions

It's being reported on Thursday (6 November 2025) that the apparent inventor of the Please Call Me service, Nkosana Makate, is likely being paid out hundreds of millions of rand by former employer Vodacom.

News broke on Tuesday night that the 17-year-long saga had been concluded with an out-of-court settlement agreement.

RELATED: Vodacom & 'Please call me' inventor Nkosana Makate reach settlement deal

MyBroadband reports that Vodacom would potentially pay Makate between R353 million and R748 million, based on the impact the settlement had on the mobile operator's expected earnings for its interim financial year ending 30 September 2025.

Before the agreement was reached, the case had been set to go back to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) later in November.

He can't think of any other case that would have been heard by the SCA three times, comments Duncan McLeod, editor of TechCentral.

"This case has really dragged through the courts - it went to the High Court, to the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court; then back to the High Court, the SCA and back to the ConCourt..."

This South African story that's built up a David-versus-Goliath status, has another element to make it even more fascinating - that Makate in fact was not the original inventor of Please Call Me.

The real inventor is thought to be Ari Kahn, working on contract at rival operator MTN when HE raised a similar idea with his employer.

This was about a month before Makate announced his own idea to the team at Vodacom, McLeod says.

"Kahn had not only come up with an idea for a Please Call Me-type service, but in fact patented it through MTN. As far as I remember, MTN decided not to pursue any claims against Vodacom despite the fact that they were implementing the technology that MTN had effectively patented. I do recall claims that Kahn is the rightful inventor and that he has the paperwork to prove it."

In any case, Please Call Me does appear to have come out of South Africa, and has earned billions for mobile operators in SA and also around the world, as it became a global model, McLeod concludes.

For more on the history of the Please Call Me saga, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article