It may feel abit dumb to start off like this…but any kiosk owner will tell you this. If you all stock the same nyanya skuma, you will be left with no recourse but to compete on price. The kaching comes with setting yourself apart…I would stop here and have you call me and pay me to walk you back to the school of basics but am in a good mood today.

Like I told you before, you better stop this price war maneno or you will all soon go out of business or best bet see massive hemorrhages on your bottom line. Micheal Joseph has said time and again – he has investors to take care of, and I have to agree with him on that point, coz I would expect a divided on my shares, if I had bought like 1 million of those “papers” when the country was going green and this not alluding to the referendum. My boy Rene is willing to take a hit for the next 5 years because he has a big brother with deep pockets. Deep pockets get depleted, and if your strategy doesn’t work out, you will be out of a job – tail tucked and the Kenya operation will be spun to some other hapless investor with big visions and their head in the clouds, with grand plans of a turnaround.  Rene was on Business Daily explaining their strategy…you will remember the Vuka tariff that was discontinued…hmmm

Bwana Atul of Yu, jumped over the cliff late last night and put it out that they too had “amuad” and dunked prices to 5cts per second or more directly 3 bob per minute and 50cts per sms on onnet messaging.

Mickael Ghossein has been quiet thus far after the sparing between the Pinks, Greens and Blacks, but I kinda guess he too is thinking of their new lower price point. I am sorely hoping that his decisions will have a good measure of thought and not some knee jerk reflex. continue reading »

* The top 12 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Mozambique and Mauritius.

* Some numbers: From June 2009 to June 2010, page views in the top 12 countries in Africa increased by 182%, unique users increased by 124%, and the amount of data transferred increased by 160%

* Growth rates in Africa: Sudan and Ghana lead the top 12 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (4,645.6% and 916.5%, respectively). Sudan and Ghana also lead the top 12 countries of the region in growth of unique users (1,225.0% and 498.8%, respectively). Kenya leads the top 12 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 639 pages on average each month.

* Facebook, Google and YouTube all do well in Africa. Facebook is the top-ranked site in six of the twelve listed countries, and Google is ranked #1 in the remaining six countries.

* Nokia remains the most popular handset brand in Africa, followed by Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and LG.

Here is how Kenya stacks up. continue reading »

Recognizing that many development companies may not have specialized marketing people or the resources to conduct formal research,Safaricom, Airtel, Orange and Yu can help fill this gap by opening up access to their customer base to encourage co-creation and testing with real end users, free of charge.

That said, developers need to figure out how to make their applications stand out from the crowd. Giving your app away for free doesnt mean a damn thing and won’t hack long term. This is business…at least I want to make some chingching. If there is no emotional or financial bond between your application and the user…then your sunk even if you were to pay guys to use your app

Key to ensuring your app will appeal to consumers is working directly with your intended audience at an early stage. Why waste time and effort if you don’t have an understanding of the following critical questions:

• Which features will make a difference to people?
• What is your addressable market?
• How much are people prepared to pay you for your trouble, if anything?

Whats the point in working on a closet killer application that is not so killer once you go to market coz you essentially build a product for yourself? #sadbuttrue

Maybe a mobile subscriber volunteer initiative that would see developers get access to real world users to test their apps. The feedback would be vital to the creation of sticky mobile utilities.

NIC recently launched NIC mobile  a banking service that uses USSD interface to avail banking services through the mobile phone. The USSD interface ensures that the channel more efficient, cost effective and user friendly.Key features of NIC Mobile are the SMS notifications and the transactional facilities available to customers.
Of more importance though is the linkage with Safaricom’s Mpesa money transfer system. Now you can load your Mpesa account with NIC Mobile banking. continue reading »

Over the month of March, we will be testing heavily a secure mobile transaction platform.Targeted for telcos and banks in the region the real push lies in the seamless integration into consumer lives regardless of the touch point (low or high end handset).

We will give you the down low on how the tests progress and the sort of feedback we will receive from our focus groups.

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Update
March 02 2009

Business Advantages and Benefits
Benefits for banks, telecom operators and end–users are the following:
Benefits for Banks
- Extended customer base and account deposits
- Increased volume of transactions with lower operating costs
- Compatibility and support for standard payment methods (debit cards and credit cards)
- Support for international transactions (remittance)
- Reduced administrative costs for opening and maintaining user accounts
- Reduced operational cost for distribution of account status information
Benefits for Telecom Operators
- Increased subscribers base
- Lower administrative costs for opening and maintaining subscribers’ accounts
- Increased revenue with reduced transactions costs
- Enhanced customer loyalty and quality of services
- New revenue streams
- Improved ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
- Elimination of costs and burden for distribution of scratch pre–paid cards
Benefits for Users
- Easy and convenient access to account information
- Secure handling of transactions
- Significantly reduced transaction fees
- Availability of accurate account information
- International transactions with improved transactions time and reduced fees
- More efficient use of pre–paid cards