Archives For safaricom

SIM embedded Facebook to connect millions regardless of phone type or subscription

February 15, 2011 — 3 Comments

Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,” said Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. “Gemalto has developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook in an affordable way.

A new technology developed by digital security firm Gemalto will soon see Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, coming to any mobile phone handset, regardless of whether it has a data connection or subscription.

Facebook integration comes by way of its Facebook for SIM service, which embeds the Facebook software application into the SIM card. This means that the client will be 100% compatible with any mobile phone that uses a SIM card for its carrier connectivity.

The experience won’t be as visually aesthetic as it would be if you were accessing the social network on your smartphone but Gemalto’s solution will still be able to deliver friend requests, status updates, wall posts and messages. Users can sign up for the service and log into their accounts directly from the SIM application and notifications can be delivered to the phone’s screen to display any messages, events or posts shared on their friends’ walls. Continue Reading…

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Understanding revenue generation for value added services on mobile

February 10, 2011 — 4 Comments

The fact that mobile is big in Africa is undeniable with more people seeking to understand how to  derive maximum value from this channel. What most seek to know is how to generate revenue from the various services that they can offer. To generate revenue, one must have the ability to bill for services and there are various ways of doing this.

Shortcodes
Shortcodes are 3-4 digit numbers that are availed by Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s) to Premium Rate Service Providers (PRSP’s) for purposes of setting up services.  At the time of setup, shortcodes are assigned billing bands which range from normal sms rates to premium rates of up to 100 shillings. Shortcodes don’t offer flexible billing and you must choose the best fit for your service. Shortcodes attract a monthly rental fee from the operators and may attract a premium one-off fee if the code is considered “golden”, such as an easy to remember 5544 for example.

Mobile operators usually reserve the use of 3 digit short-codes for network centric services. Continue Reading…

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Don’t get into trouble buying lists, just build your own email and text database

January 20, 2011 — 2 Comments

When thinking about reaching out to the mobile consumer, we tend to gravitate more to the obvious use of sms – either directly via bulk messaging or shortcode. There has been a market for hawking lists and databases locally that has seen many hapless Kenyans spammed silly with non – opt in, non targeted marketing material.

Email seems to have slipped to the back burner as many may not have noted mobile device manufactures adapt their devices and software to cater for mobile email.

That various social networks have over one million Kenyans registered; it very well means that there are the same number of active email addresses with real people behind them waiting to be engaged. The social networks have also primed consumers for alerts via email as practically all actions that occur on their platforms are communicated back via email.

However, the rules of engagement are not far off from what we have seen adopted for the more ubiquitous messaging channel that is sms. The key challenge with email, is that delivery may not be guaranteed and if delivered, it may not be opened by the target consumer. The obvious advantage of email over sms is the amount of information you can disseminate and the ease of retransmission of your message to the social graph.

So how do we ensure that email is plugged back to our consumer communications? Continue Reading…

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Made for mobile: Riverwood can take the plunge too

October 28, 2010 — Leave a comment

Mobile technology has grown tremendously over the past decade with devices becoming smarter and faster and the supporting technologies improving by the day. With increased capabilities of mobile phone handsets, there is growing demand for content that can be downloaded or streamed.

The growth in this demand and the availability of the supporting technology such as 3G, opens up huge opportunities for the local film industry.
The local film industry can explore the potential of mobile devices as an outlet for content consumption and discovery. The modern lifestyle is one lived on the go, and to fully leverage this, the industry can create “bite sized” pieces of content that mobile subscribers can consume on their mobile devices – mobisodes.

Continue Reading…

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The mind of Micheal Joseph…reflections of the man who built Safaricom, an inivite only event

October 2, 2010 — Leave a comment

The *iHub_ Nairobi and the Elimisha_us initiative are pleased to announce that Michael Joseph, the CEO of Safaricom Ltd, who is due to retire on November 1, 2010 will come to the *iHub_ Nairobi to meet with young techies, entrepreneurs and tech creatives and reflect on various issues including his last decade at the helm of the most successful company in East Africa.

In a candid discussion (just ten days before his retirement), Mr. Joseph is expected to share the wisdom gathered in his many years as a technology leader and his decade at Safaricom with young future technology leaders who are on the rise today. Among the issues that he may cover in his honest reflections are – his experience setting up and running Safaricom, the values that have driven him, his views on Kenya’s ICT development and its future direction and innovation.

In addition, as October 20th 2010 is Heroes day, the young developers, bloggers, tech creatives and entrepreneurs, will toast to the success of this leader, who through his visionary leadership at Safaricom has made significant contributions to the development of the opportunities they have today. Continue Reading…

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The beautiful ones are not yet born: thoughts on the future potential of mobile, a look at the Nokia, IIEC and Safaricom partnership

September 6, 2010 — Leave a comment

A few years ago election monitoring and reporting was a tricky, tiring and often thankless affair. Dealing with Kenya‘s elections processes in the last decade, in particular, has largely involved sending hordes of polling clerks, election observers and monitors, with paper files stashed in their underarms, to far-flung areas to help record the goings-on election and referenda. Apart from being slow, unreliable and erratic, such processes have proved risky for election officials especially if violence broke out.

But things are changing. Mobile phone technology is rapidly transforming the way these national and other crucial life-changing activities are carried out, bringing with it faster, reliable and credible relay of information from outlying areas.
Apart from elections reporting, the ubiquitous device, owned by nearly 20 million Kenyans, has also helped stem incidents of violence that have in the past rocked various parts of Kenya notably in 2007 elections. A lot depends on how transparent such processes as elections are but the mobile phone is taking a lion’s share of the contribution toward this positive change.

In a ground-breaking project in conjunction with the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC), Safaricom, Kenya’s largest network operator, the world’s leading mobile handsets-maker Nokia supplied over 18,000 Nokia 1680 phones to be used by the electoral body’s returning officers and clerks in various part of the country.

IIEC had picked Safaricom after, inviting Kenyan telecom operators for a partnership with it with the objective of running an efficient and credible referendum process. Continue Reading…

In Misfiring neurons, Mobile, Technology , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The road less traveled by mobile network operators

August 26, 2010 — 1 Comment

The recent mobile price wars have sparked a lively debate both on and offline with people aligning themselves along various schools of thought, trying to dissect the moves by the three underdogs – Zain, Orange and Yu. While most of the discussions are from a consumer perspective, where cheaper may be considered better, we need to look at the ecosystem that has become part of our daily lives more closely to appreciate the factors at play and perhaps project what the space will look like in another five years.

Continue Reading…

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How to differentiate your telco…lessons for Zain, Orange,Yu and any other chap trying to play catch up

August 20, 2010 — 1 Comment

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…

In Business, Mobile, Numbers and the bottom line, Technology , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Zain slashes rates by 50% for calls to all networks in Kenya

August 18, 2010 — Leave a comment

Zain Kenya has today lowered its calling charges across all networks by a whooping 50% – becoming the first mobile phone company in the country to pass to customers the benefit of the new low interconnect charges released by the Communication Commission of Kenya. The mobile phone company has lowered its callings charges to Kshs. 3 across all networks in Kenya for both its prepaid and postpaid customers in a move that abolishes completely the distinction between intra-network and cross-network calls costs.

SMS costs have also been lowered to Ksh. 1 across all networks in Kenya. In what is arguably the best value proposition ever launched in the Kenya telecommunications industry, Zain said the drastic reduction in calling charges would benefit its customers and those on other networks who are paying extremely high prices for making phone calls. With the lowering of the connectivity charges to a new low, Kenyans will now be in a position to switch mobile service providers while retaining their current numbers once the number portability directive comes into force. Continue Reading…

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Kipokezi, another Safaricom service in partnership with ForgetMeNot

August 11, 2010 — 2 Comments

Over 15 million mobile phone subscribers in Kenya – over a third of the country’s population – will now be able to access email and online chat regardless of the make and model of their mobile phone. All standard phones with the ability to SMS are being transformed with the new Kipokezi service bringing low-cost email and chat within the reach of millions of Kenyans, improving communications with their friends and families,both at home and abroad.

We have seen  blistering growth in mobile phone subscriptions. From just over 125,000 in 2000, latest figures from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) show there are now more than 17 million Kenyans with a mobile phone subscription.

The new Kipokezi service will be available to Safaricom’s entire subscriber base and is provided by ForgetMeNot Africa, a specialist in unified messaging systems for
telecommunications operators. Continue Reading…

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