Well, as expected Safaricom did increase its calling rates by 33% due to the double digit inflation being experienced, and a free falling shilling that was trading as low as Ksh 104 to the dollar, and which is reportedly the second worst currency in the world as last week.
This was surprisingly the only performing sector that had not made any increases on its services or goods, and the first price increase in airtime in 11 years! The low-cost call strategies that had been adopted by yuMobile and Airtel seems to have not paid fruits, as in fact reports indicate that they actually lost customers in the three months to June 2011. On the other hand, Safaricom and Telkom Kenya, who had opposed this strategy, gained new subscribers.
Airtel lost 5% of its customers, which translates to 202,970 in the last quarter of the year; and losing its market share to 14.3%. yuMobile 1,554 of its customers between March and June this year. In the same period, total number of mobile phone subscribers stood at 25.27 million (including about 4 million using unregistered phones).
In India, a similar trend is being observed where mobile tariffs, raised recently for the first time in years, are set to rise further, a clear signal that the Indian telecom sector's tryst with cut-price tariffs has all but ended.Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, told an industry conference that mobile phone companies had little choice but to raise call charges because they had to offset lower revenues from rural markets.
"This correction is required to compensate companies for their rural operations because cost of operations has gone up exponentially," Mittal said.
Well this is good info for me. Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDelete