This is really going to be interesting from a branding perspective! Its now confirmed that Vivendi from France has negotiated to acquire Zain’s African operations. This is somewhat interesting since Vivendi used to own Kencell in Kenya which it then sold off to Celtel back in 2003 as a result of its own financial challenges at the time. From a Kenyan marketing context, Vivendi’s acquisition of Zain is going to be expensive in terms re-branding, once again. What I mean is that we first we got used to Kencell, then they became Celtel, and thereafter Zain - and now, what next? Vivendi?
I’d hate to imagine how much has been spent in Kenya alone in terms of re-branding and re-marketing this business, and it keeps on happening as can be expected when companies change hands. But here’s the kicker, with a dominant and consistent brand like Safaricom in the green corner, it surely must be eroding their brand-less customer base. Safaricom is and has always been accepted as a truly Kenyan brand, even though it is largely owned and run by Vodafone PLC of the UK. In trying to build a Pan-African brand, Celtel and Zain may have ultimately compromised the Kenyan operations of the business by continuously changing the brand name to reflect either new ownership or a change of marketing strategy. It shows how the world of mergers and acqusitions is so very fluid that brands have little chance of staying static. But as we all know, consumers buy the brand, and not the product or service. Good luck, once again, Vivendi.
In what is becoming the next phase of the search engine wars, Bing, which is Microsoft’s recently unveiled search engine now does real-time searches on the Internet using Twitter. Real-time internet search is a fast growing trend online, especially via Twitter where news and information is increasing being released far faster than through traditional media channels. The recent Iranian election chaos, Michael Jackson’s death and other major events have been first reported on sites like Twitter. By linking its search results to Twitter, Bing is innovating how search engines work. However, as always, never count out an always innovative Google who are bound to respond with a significantly improved real-time search capabilities. For the full story, go here>
Kenya’s ICT Board has launched its Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) value proposition strategy which is focused on Kenya becoming a global niche player for outsourced call center sales and customer service. The global market for BPO services currently stands at approximately US$ 220 million. The Rockefeller Foundation has given the ICT Board funding to the tune of Kes. 39 million to drive the BPO strategy for Kenya, which is one the key drivers for for vision 2030.
Kenya is renowned globally for a highly skilled workforce with a good command of English and neutral accent that makes them ideal for call center outsourcing. Hereto, Kenya has been unable to tap to leverage this potential due to costly satellite-based telecommunications - this is set to change starting this month when the SEACOM high speed undersea data cable goes live followed by TEAMS later this year and EASSY next year. As a result of the much faster and low cost data and telecommunucations, costs will drop by as much as 70% from what they are today.
In the news today, Zain, Kenya’s second largest mobile network has lowered its internet charges by approximately 25%. The move is expected to increase the number of subscribers that Zain has to-date by making internet access significantly more affordable, country-wide. It also means that Zain is responding to the recent announcements by Orange, Safaricom and YU who have all also dropped their internet charges over the last few months.
In order to sign-up for Zain’s internet service and data modem, subscribers will now only have to pay Kes. 2,995, down from Kes. 3,999.00. In addition, subscribers to the service will now only have to make a deposit of Kes. 5,000.00, down from Kes. 10,000.00. It would appear that like all its major competitors, Zain intends to become a major player in the Kenya’s fast growing internet market - especially when the SEACOM, TEAMS and EASSY high speed undersea cables go live this and next year.
I just found out that Orange Kenya launched its mobile web portal earlier this week. The service which has been named “Orange World” is only accessible to Orange Kenya subscribers and requires mobile web enabled handsets in order to access it. The portal will be free to Orange Kenya subscribers for the next month to download content in the form of music, ringtones, wallpapers, videos, horoscopes, news, information, etc. Surprisingly, the Orange World announcement does not provide the actual mobile web portal address so its clearly proprietary and only accessible to its subscribers.
The launch of the Orange Kenya mobile web portal is obviously a counter move to Safaricom Live, Safaricom’s mobile web portal which has been operational for the last couple of months. Recently, Safaricom has been heavily promoting Safaricom Live in the media so as to get as many of its 10 million plus subscribers as possible to use it. Clearly, Kenya’s mobile web content war has begun as data becomes a key revenue channel for mobile networks in the marketplace.
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