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Telecoms in Kenya fight for bottom segment market

Xinhua, March 29, 2017 Adjust font size:

Kenya's telecommunication companies have taken the fight for subscribers to the low-income segment of the market.

The firms, Safaricom, Airtel and Orange Kenya have in the last one week come up with tariffs allowing subscribers to call, text and access internet at the lowest price.

Safaricom, East African nation's leading telecom, last week introduced Flex, a service that offers customers a chance to determine how much money they will spend on calls, short messages and Internet bundles.

One unit in the Flex plan is equivalent to 3 megabyte of data, 20 seconds voice call or three short messages across all networks.

Subscribers can sign up for a daily bundle costing a dollar that offers 115 units, a 6 dollar weekly package with 700 units or a monthly bundle for 35 dollars offering 3,100 units.

"Flex is offering freedom and flexibility to our customers to navigate across our different products without restrictions," said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore during the launch.

Airtel, on the other hand, has introduced a voice package that offers subscribers to rival networks 0.02 dollars charge per minute, down from 0.04 dollars currently.

Airtel subscribers will be required to subscribe daily, weekly or monthly packages of 0.10 dollars, 0.50 dollars and 1.50 dollars respectively.

Customers on the plan dubbed Tubonge are offered at least 100 minutes of talk-time daily for on-net calls at 0.10 dollars.

"Our aim is to simplify life for our customers and make value for their money. Some 70 per cent of our customers mostly use voice call service and we aim to make them feel at home, and even attract more," said Airtel Managing Director Prasanta Das Sarma.

Similarly, Orange Kenya's customers are enjoying 0.01 dollars per minute calls to rival networks at 0.19 dollars. Alternatively, for 0.48 dollars, customers enjoy cross-network calls at 0.01 dollars, get 100 megabyte data and free calls within Orange network.

As at September 2016, Safaricom had a market share of 69 percent, Airtel 18 percent and Orange 6 percent, according to latest data from the Communication Authority. Endit