KA-INVESTOR

  • Mobile Wars Continue: Part II

    Posted: May 21, 2008, 4:08 pm by ka-investor
    I had earlier this year blogged about mobile wars and the stiff competition that major players are facing with the entry of France Telcom (by acquiring 51%Telkom Kenya) and Econnet into the market. Initially Safaricom pretended to snub being dragged into meaningless price wars with Celtel (soon to become ‘Zain’), but it seems this was just a bluff. Today as Celtel announced yet another great 3 bob tariff option for their subscriber, the industry leaders have also announced a 10 bob tariff. Clearly, the wars are not yet over, not now.

    Even the former loss making Telkom Kenya is not being left behind. After a ksh.26 billion buyout by France Telcom, the former government parastatal has gone forth to sign a Ksh.8.9 billion deal with Ericsson to roll out their intended GSM network as from September this year. Econet is planning to roll out its long awaited network in July

    The stage for a bruising battle for control of the local mobile phone market is now set and the main target is the safaricom’s near monopoly 9.2 million subscribers (although some of them are absentee subscribers). Other battle frontiers are the cash transfer business, internet service provision and even the intra network call charges.

    To add petrol to the fire the government is seeking to trim down the current 26% airtime tax to less than 10% in the 2008/09 Budget. This will see the mobile phone charges dropping to as low as Ksh.2 per minute.

    Life can’t get sweeter than this, can it?

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes

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