The recent entry of new players in mobile telephony industry in Kenya doubled the number of subscribers in Kenya. The number has risen to 16 million subscribers within a period of 1 year. The growth is due to reduction of call rates and cheap mobile handsets.

The NSE listed company, and East and Central Africa's most profitable company, has a subscriber base of over 12 million and still growing beside the entry of New players. Its competence is boosted transfer of money over the phone under brand "M-Pesa" services (remember this services is giving banks a nightmare!).

Zain group comes second with over 4 million subscribers and still growing with its lowest calling rates in the country across all the networks.

Telkom's Kenya's newest kid on the block Orange hit 1 million subscribers on its first month in the market.

Another player is Econet Wireless wich has hit over 500,00 thousand before its launch through its online booking of the number of your choice on www.yu.co.ke.

:banana::nuts:

that is almost 50% penetration. thats some progress made hopefully with the TEAMs cable landing next year and with the fourth cellphone company launching in december i think it might end up being 70% or 80% penetration. for a country that was supposed to be in a civil war, kenya is definetely moving forward against some big odds.

It is predicted that by the end of next year this will have increased to over 25 million subscribers.

Great news. I can only see good things coming to Kenya, the future looks very bright and promising. Our leaders just need to get their act together and Kenya will be the place to watch.

Wow, that is more that I thought. Kudos, Kenya. :)

As said by the Econet Chief during the launch of Econet Wireless Kenya, he is targeting the age bracket of 18-35 year-olds. This bracket are the majority, young and virbrant population. But the most untapped market are the rural folks. Most Cities and Towns residents owns phones. A city like Nairobi is almost reaching saturation point.

As said by the Econet Chief during the launch of Econet Wireless Kenya, he is targeting the age bracket of 18-35 year-olds. This bracket are the majority, young and virbrant population. But the most untapped market are the rural folks. Most Cities and Towns residents owns phones. A city like Nairobi is almost reaching saturation point.

This is one are that Kenya can use to turn around its Economy into a 21st Century.

This is one are that Kenya can use to turn around its Economy into a 21st Century.

Mobile phones have been a big success story in kenya (and in africa in general). Competing providers, dropping prices, bringing service to rural areas. Investors are much more likely to put their money in new investment projects when they see that successful business can be done all parts of the country.

Good Idea !

Want a SIM card? Show your identity
http://www.nation.co.ke/image/view/-/627774/highRes/89658/-/maxw/600/-/bhdlooz/-/SUB1PIX.jpg
A mobile phone user inserts a SIM card into a phone. The President has directed mobile phone companies to register those who buy SIM cards in an effort to reduce phone-related crimes. Photo/WILLIAM OERI

A mobile phone user inserts a SIM card into a phone. The President has directed mobile phone companies to register those who buy SIM cards in an effort to reduce phone-related crimes. Photo/WILLIAM OERI
By BENJAMIN MUINDIPosted Tuesday, July 21 2009 at 22:30


Mobile phone users will soon have to register their personal details if they are to remain connected.

Related Stories

Companies providing mobile phone services were on Tuesday given six months to register the details of their subscribers as the government moved to deter criminals from using their gadgets for illegal activities.

Those who will not have complied with the directive when the deadline expires will have their telephone lines disabled under the directive issued by President Kibaki on Monday night in a speech read for him by Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka at a ceremony to commemorate the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) 10th anniversary and ICT Expo at the Carnivore Hotel in Nairobi.

Kenya has 17.6 million mobile phone users. Once they are registered, the information will be kept under CCK’s custody.

The new regulation comes in the face of an upsurge in sophisticated crimes and a series of abductions after which the kidnappers demand ransom through mobile phone calls and text messages.

But the era when subscribers would just walk into a shop and by SIM cards without registration could be over after the President directed the Ministry of Information and Communication to put in place the elaborate data bank that will ensure that every phone number can be traced to its user.

Until now, criminals have been taking advantage of the fact that the owners of the mobile phone handsets and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards are not registered before enjoying the service.

Speaking to the Nation on Tuesday on how the directive will be carried out, Information and Communication permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said all SIM card holders will be required to furnish their particulars with their network providers before the end of the year.

Money transfer

“If users will not have complied with this deadline, their numbers will be shut out the network,” the PS said.

Operators in the mobile phones industry have argued that the lack of a necessary law was to blame for the anomaly.

However, Dr Ndemo hinted at amending the Kenya Communications Act to make the process legal.

Users of Safaricom’s M-Pesa and Zain’s Zap money transfer services have their SIM card details registered already. By May this year, M-Pesa had about six million users while Zap had about 600,000.

Telkom-Kenya’s fixed land line captures all the details of the users as well. If a subscriber dials 999, the company can identify the caller and where he or she is calling from.

When contacted to comment on the new directive, Zain CEO Rene Meza said the move would not reduce crime.

“Prepaid subscribers registration is a good initiative to identify mobile users. However, it does not prevent or reduce crimes as the criminals normally manage to get hold of stolen mobile phones or fake or stolen identity cards to get their own mobile connections,” he said.

This, he said, was based on his experience in Pakistan and Paraguay where the law required that prepaid subscribers be registered.

His sentiments were echoed by Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph.

“The issue of subscriber registration has been over-simplified by the political class and, in itself, it is not a panacea for addressing rising incidents of crime,” he said.

He drew the analogy from the registration of motor vehicles, which are often used in crimes, saying it was always the case that criminals steal vehicles and use them to commit crimes.

“In this same vein, subscriber registration will only assist the government to know who the honest citizens are and will have little or no impact in identifying criminal elements,” he said.

According to him, the government will have to find ingenious investigative methods to reduce phone-related crimes.

But the police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe said the move would enable his detectives manage crime.

“It is the way mobile telephone concept was introduced in the country that complicated the matter,” Mr Kiraithe said in an earlier interview with the Nation.
“The implementation did not factor the security question from its start.”

Related Stories

However, Mr Joseph told the government that it was important to understand that the support provided by telecommunications companies should not be treated as a substitute for proper investigations by the police.

“With the rising crime trends, it will be necessary for the government to invest in modern investigative techniques,” he said.

He, however, agreed that registration of SIM cards was an essential but not a legal requirement.

Such a law stipulates what information should be documented, how it is verified, how it will be managed and those entitled to access it to ensure confidentiality.

Hi there, Would a new one like me be welcome here?
Thanks so much in deed.

demande simulation pret personnel en ligne (http://simulationpretpersonnel.com) - Pret personnel en ligne et de comparer les meilleurs taux afin de... La demande de prêt personnelen lignedemande simulation pret personnel en ligne (http://simulationpretpersonnel.com)

Hi there, Would a new one like me be welcome here?
Thanks so much in deed.

demande simulation pret personnel en ligne (http://simulationpretpersonnel.com) - Pret personnel en ligne et de comparer les meilleurs taux afin de... La demande de prêt personnelen lignedemande simulation pret personnel en ligne (http://simulationpretpersonnel.com)

Your welcome.:cheers:

Success by India’s telecommunications giant Essar Group to acquire controlling stake in Kenya’s youngest mobile provider, yu, could profoundly tilt the mobile market and bring service charges tumbling to unexpected levels.
The acquisition, which will see local holding company Essar Telecom Kenya snap upto 80 per cent stake in yu, significantly means business and investment decisions will now be quicker to reach because Essar no longer has to haggle with any partners before it makes any major decisions. The company also boasts of having a national reach and no longer relies on rival’s infrastructure to carry its call traffic.
Those with doubts about the significance of the move will be answered by Essar Telecom Kenya Chief Executive Officer Srinivasa Iyengar’s disclosure that the company invested close to $450 million (Sh34.6 billion) in the deal, including the cost of nation-wide rollout plan.
This is the single-largest investment by the Indian company since it ventured into the county.
"The acquisition means decisions will be made faster and lenders will be more willing to extend us credit facilities," says Iyengar.
Before the acquisition, Econet Wireless Kenya, which is the local holding company for the yu brand, was 70 per cent owned by Econet Wireless International, while Essar Communications Holdings Ltd, a unit of the Mumbai, India-based Essar Group, owned 49 per cent stake and by extension management rights over the Kenyan operations.
Essar’s deep pockets, coupled with the expected warmer relations with lenders gives yu the financial muscle it needs to court more subscribers, improve its service offerings and launch massive media campaigns to reach out to potential customers. According to yu’s Chief Commercial Officer, Kunal Ramteke, the company will spend close to Sh450 million in the next three months in a massive media campaign to reach out to more subscribers.
"We will tell them about our existence and also inform them that we are the cheapest mobile company in Kenya. We hope to hit a target of two million customers by March next year," reckons Ramteke.
The plan might sound ambitious, but should not be an off target idea for the firm. In its nation-wide rollout programme, the firm completed the exercise a month earlier when many expected it to fail to meet its August target.
special tariff
"Over the next four years, we’ll invest $200 million (Sh15.4 billion) in the business," says Iyengar, adding that yu’s business model is focused on getting the mass market.
The fund will be used to improve the company’s infrastructure and expand its sales channel. It will also be used to promote the company’s brand and develop new products targeted at low-end subscribers.
Already, yu has snapped up a number of subscribers in this category through a special tariff that charges Sh7.50 per minute for the first two minutes of a call in the day. Callers then pay a flat charge of 50 cents per minute for other calls made within the network for the rest of the day.
"This is not a promotional offer. This tariff is a permanent one and we don’t intend to change it," explained Iyengar.
This is the kind of talk, which the company hopes will lure in an additional 1.4 million customers to its network in the next six months and it is confident it can do even better because it is now networked all over the country.
Over the next few years, yu’s pricing and nationwide reach should give it the edge in the areas that offer the greatest growth. It means that in the next few years, rural areas, which have been cited for their potential as emerging markets will be key battlefields for yu and other mobile companies.
Iyengar is confident of winning this battle that he no longer looks over his shoulders for rivals. He expects yu’s ambitious plan lays ground for the midsize operator to challenge Safaricom’s leadership in the lucrative sector in the next two years.
Ad drive
As part of the journey, yu plans to rollout aggressive marketing campaign. It plans to air new commercials in print and broadcast media to drive up subscriber numbers. This will be followed by commercials running during radio broadcasts, which has a wider audience, especially among the rural populace.
It is billed to be the firm’s biggest marketing move since it launched into the country about one-year ago. The campaign includes in-store posters, promotions, outdoor and print advertising as well as digital and music components.The company is hoping the new message will appeal to consumers who are financially and emotionally pressured by the prevailing high rates of mobile calls and difficult economic times.
"yu hopes to help consumers discover life’s simple pleasures," says Iyengar. "Difficult times call for honesty and simplicity. If we can make profit by charging 50 cents per minute for a call, the other players who are charging higher can also lower their charges and make profit."
Already yu’s friendly tariff makes it cheaper to call rival’s numbers than when calling within the rival’s network.
Could this be the momentum the company needed to grow its subscriber base to higher levels?
Iyengar is confident that the intensified competition will reignite growth for mobile companies and the economy. The winner in all this will be the subscriber for whom the full impact of the competition would be felt. Besides the cheaper call rates, the company launched free Short Message Service (SMS) for intra network messages. The free SMS model is a first in the country and could significantly drive up the uptake of its services.
Job cuts
It could be a tall order for the company though, given the general slowdown of the economy. Companies seeking to expand have been experiencing setbacks in sales projections as job cuts, and inflation, eat into consumer purses, slowing down spending. But Iyengar says they are not worried because they offer the best prices in the market. "While others are reviewing their projections downwards, we are reviewing our projections upwards because our model is the best suited in the current circumstances," he says.
Yu has been relying on some of its rivals’ basic infrastructure, including signal masts, and operate only in Nairobi and Mombasa before last month’s rollout.
Iyengar told Financial Journal that Essar was also talking to Dhaby Group, which owns Waridi – a telecom network in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast with a view of buying it out to increase its presence in Africa.
"The deal is subject to the findings of a due diligence process, which is already underway," says Iyengar

I think we are going places in terms of technological advancement. Yesterday I had a chat with a Distributor Manager at Kenya Digital Networks(KDN). He confirmed to me that all Kenyan Provincial Headquarters have Fibre Optic Backbone connectivity(am not that sure about Garissa).
He intimated to me that KDN had approached Kenya Power a couple of years ago with intention to use their(KPLCo's) Cable Network to spread internet connection to the whole country. This is a cheap and viable way to reach the whole country without laying an additional cable at enormous cost. This proposal by KDN fell flat because of....(you guessed right),corruption disguised as bureacracy. The network that KDN has now laid across the country has to be recovered from the consumer-the hapless Kenyan.

Zain Kenya has moved to improve its position in the increasingly competitive data market after it linked with under sea fibre optic cable on the Seacom platform, opening the way for the introduction of new Internet access packages to the prepaid subscribers.

By purchasing capacity in Seacom, the telco has now narrowed the market competitive advantage of its competitors Safaricom, Telkom Kenya and Essar, who are shareholders in TEAMs and have also bought capacity in Seacom.

This now gives it equal ability to offer faster Internet as its competitors and also introduces new services such as unlimited Internet access it has unveiled for prepaid customers and video streaming.

Low reviews
The move sets the stage for a bruising battle for control of the data market which telecommunications and Internet service providers have all set their eyes on to boost their Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) which has been decreasing due to the stiff competition within the voice segment, leading to lowering of tariffs and hitting revenues.

Zain Kenya managing director Mr Rene Meza said the connection to Seacom will enhance availability of bandwidth thereby enhancing data speeds through the significant capacity expansion on the backbone to meet growing demand for Internet users.

“This is critical for real-time services such as video streaming. It will also reduce backbone costs which will eventually bring down the cost to the end-user,” said Mr Meza.

The MD said following an extensive network upgrade that started last year, Internet is now available in all parts of the country. The Zain Kenya network is estimated to reach 90 per cent of the population.

Heavy investment
The move by Zain Kenya to stir interest in data services among the prepaid customers is driven by the anticipated boom occasioned by the arrival of the fibre optic cables.

Despite the mobile telephony subscription growing to more than 16 million, data services have largely been used by corporate clients and customers in the post-paid tariff plans.

Statistics from the industry regulator, Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) show the country has slightly above 3.5 million Internet subscribers but this is expected to increase to 10 million by 2012 due to the heavy investment in infrastructure in most parts of the country.

Internet is also expected to grow due to the new unified licensing regime that now allows operators to offer a number of services as opposed to one based on technology.

This has enabled operators who could not offer data to users directly to start offering the services, thus cutting the number of layers of providers that was also cited in a previous survey by CCK as contributing to the high costs in the country.
While the satellite bandwidth costs Sh6,000 per megabyte per month, the undersea cable costs Sh400 per month per megabyte and is expected to drop further as other two cables — Eassy and LION — prepare to land next year.

Previously, operators have focused on postpaid services or corporate customers but of late they have been changing strategy by targeting the mass market either through the prepaid subscribers or home users.

Zain Kenya has unveiled two flat rate access packages in a bid to increase uptake of data services for the prepaid customer. The unlimited bundle and pre-paid bundle packages will see customers make up to 90 per cent savings when accessing the Internet.

Users will pay a minimum flat rate of Sh250 to gain unlimited access for a day.

Currently, the cheapest cyber café charges 50 cents per minute, although users complain of slow speeds.

The package is also available for a maximum of 30 days at Sh3,250.

Alternatively, customers will be required to subscribe to the bundled offer at Sh100 for 25 MB but purchase a connection gadget known as USB modem at Sh2,999 down from Sh12,995 loaded with 150MB.

“The relatively high cost of the modem has been a major hindrance to penetration of data services in this market. By making the set up costs affordable, we are optimistic there will be a corresponding uptake of the service,” said Mr Meza.

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/-/539552/656222/-/585gfa/-/index.html

I think we are going places in terms of technological advancement. Yesterday I had a chat with a Distributor Manager at Kenya Digital Networks(KDN). He confirmed to me that all Kenyan Provincial Headquarters have Fibre Optic Backbone connectivity(am not that sure about Garissa).
He intimated to me that KDN had approached Kenya Power a couple of years ago with intention to use their(KPLCo's) Cable Network to spread internet connection to the whole country. This is a cheap and viable way to reach the whole country without laying an additional cable at enormous cost. This proposal by KDN fell flat because of....(you guessed right),corruption disguised as bureacracy. The network that KDN has now laid across the country has to be recovered from the consumer-the hapless Kenyan.

What about major urban areas that arent provincial HQs like Eldoret and Meru?
What are the costs for a KDN connection?