As Africa enters into a new era of connectivity capability, with Kenya serving as a major hub for that development, there is added pressure on operators like Safaricom to address a new level of demand from its end users. Kavit Majithia reports.
For Safaricom, it is becoming increasingly hard to deny the impact that airtel has made in the Kenyan market. Across most of the country, the Indian-based telco, as it has done in the other 15 African regions it now operates in, has pushed an aggressive marketing campaign through television and billboard advertisements, indicating its drive towards securing new consumers. This strategy, and its established presence in India, is ultimately putting Safaricom’s position as Kenya’s leading operator in a state of disrepair.
New competition
“When airtel first came into the market we immediately took a price cut of 70% which we certainly did not expect. This in turn had an impact on volumes that were carried on the network. Airtel’s entrance has certainly made us more competitive in terms of the way we structure ourselves and the way we operate,” says Sylvia Mulinge, general manager, enterprise business unit at...