Safaricom has launched a new offer for their mobile data at only Kshs. 8.00 per day, you have unlimited mobile internet. This offer is however for people accessing the internet using their handsets. Safaricom has recently been promoting usage of mobile data with lots of giveaways for their customers ranging from airtime to MacBooks.

Safaricom has also been massively promoting Facebook mobile which clearly is their biggest data revenue. This is just another way of Safaricom telling its competition they are ahead of their game and they are big enough to afford crazy offers!

To subscribe, users are supposed to dial *544#

When I said I was on the right side of life banking with Equity and using Safaricom’s M-Pesa, I was 100% sure of what I was saying. Now, the two giants have joined hands to make the most incredible service in mobile money worldwide, a bank account you can open, operate, save, withdraw, access loans and micro-financing and any other service within it just from your mobile phone. Not WAP enabled phones or complicated methods of getting that achieved but the world famous STK service from Safaricom, M-Pesa.

M-Kesho (I still dont get the name – M is definitely for mobile, Kesho is Swahili for tomorrow so combining the two…I guess its the future banking) is the new baby in town.

From my view, its a great product especially for the unbanked and those who find it difficult to access loans. While banking services are important, lots of Africans have no access to it due to poor infrastructure, lack for value of banking, processes involved in our banking systems, requirements and all that. During the short while that M-Pesa has run, its managed to handle more transactions in a day only in Kenya than Western Union handles in the entire world. It is proof that there is need and that innovation can be greatly used to improve the livelihood of the common man whose income is way less than average. So now you can open an account with only Kshs. 100 which is roughly about $1.25 and no operating cost. This for me makes up what we need to bring our economy to scale.

M-Pesa is serving over 10 million people in Kenya of all classes. That is where the mark has been drawn. I like what Michael Joseph has done with Safaricom and the fact that they are huge and not developer friendly does not make me like them any less. Safaricom has played its role in society. Thanks to Safaricom, there are more internet users in Kenya now.

That said and done, Safaricom can do better -  by working with local developers and allowing them to develop on their platform. Safaricom needs to learn from the likes of Apple, the success of the iStore is because each developer is given an equal chance. We can turn round Africa if only corporates were not as selfish as they are currently. Still on Safaricom, we would like to see you promote local websites in the same strength you are putting behind Facebook with the Safaricom Live brand. Lets hope someone from Safaricom actually sees and forwards this link to someone “BIG”!

Congrats on the launch to both Safaricom and Equity – BTW…none of their websites had information about this by the time I started to write this blog. Pull up your cables people!

The use of mobile internet in Kenya rose by 615.4% between November 2008 and November 2009, quite a heavy increase compared to other countries placed top 10 by  State of the Mobile Web, November 2009 a report by Opera, the most popular mobile browser currently. Got me thinking, Ghana is the biggest riser in this list, with over 4000% increase, followed by Kenya, the number of local mobile websites is ashamedly low and the increase within the said period of local mobile websites (or visits to them) is barely unnoticeable.

While the use of mobile internet is rising, content is lacking and this is where I say the African developers are sleeping on the job. We have most of the African traffic headed to Google, Facebook, Youtube, Yahoo and other major American sites, while the local websites remain unnoticed. Its funny that on that list, Safaricom’s wapsite is not even on the top 10 of the Kenyan traffic while its the start page on default browsers on mobile phones if you are using their connection.

I have mentioned before that corporates need to brace up to these stats and start giving mobile web the place it deserves. Nation Media is one of the most visited website in Kenya on the web but its also not appearing on the list because their site is not mobile friendly and they do not have a wap version – Standard group appears at number 10 because they actually have a mobile news site.

For the next few years, the best traffic you will get on the African web is mobile and this is a challenge to developers to provide mobile content for Africa and you will create traffic like never before.

Before I talk of hindrances, I have to admit that am in love with where Kenya is and where its headed with the ICT craze and the trends in technology acceptance in our corporates, SMEs, homes, schools and other institutions, including government which has extremely deployed moves to take us to the next step. Our information ministry PS, Dr. Bitange Ndemo is a great asset and I do hope he gets to finalize his ICT dreams for the country.

Now back to the hindrances, talking of this from my at least 8 years on the industry.

Kenic
Kenic to me has always been a major drag of the web industry in Kenya. With heavy pricing, the number of Kenyans who own TLDs compared to those who own the local domain is greatly a pathetic comparison. I own and manage for clients at least 245 domain names. Out of those, only 12 are .ke and its a shame most of my clients are Kenyans. If only Kenic could work on a better pricing, I am sure we would see the rise of local names in a good trend.

The other thing Kenic needs to take care of is automation of the registration process. I know there are registrars in between but Kenic should allow them to have an API to have automated purchases of domain names.

DNS refreshing is another of Kenic’s flaws. I hear they refresh DNS every 2 hours but to me it sounds like a big lie. I have registered a name and waited over 5 hours for DNS while if I register a .com, it takes under 5 minutes.

We have people in the web industry sitting on the board and Moses Kemibaro is one of them and these issues should be raised and addressed to have more people going for the local domain.

Mobile Operators
Am not one of those people who carry multiple phones (Neither do I have a chinese phone with 2 lines and a fire extinguisher). The greatest way to push content into the end user is by use of the mobile phone. A huge percentage of Kenyans who have access to the internet are on mobile connections. Niko na Safaricom, so I will talk about them. When you get to their Wap site, you get a host of content that they are vending in partnership with their providers. When you scroll further they have a ticket sales for the travel industry, again which they co-run with Bernsoft. After that, there are “LINKS”. Its funny that all the links are to Facebook, Twitter, Goal.com, Google, Gmail, and only like 2 links to local sites. I feel like the big player is afraid of boosting local talent maybe coz of competition? Well, my point is that as a service provider to us developers, our mobile operators should compliment our services and not kill us with their big resources.

While we have projects like the iHub, where are the operators? We are busy trying to develop more content that can drive traffic (which will make money for the operators) to our local sites. The operators as part of their CSR should get involved and support local developers and not fight them. Someone do something.

ISPs and Bandwidth Prices
The general consumer has their mobile operator as their ISP as well. Bandwidth is extremely expensive and embarrassingly slow compared to some countries that we are competing with. I urge the players to come up with innovative ways of reducing costs like Loopnet (Read a post by Moses Kemibaro) has done. The more accessibility we have, the better for the industry.

Creative Content
Finally, consumers are not choosy of where the content comes from as long as its great content. So developers need creativity and innovation to come up with great content that everyone will appreciate.

Mainstream Media
The media should embrace nu-media and move with times. While Nation media thinks the money is at classifieds, we know how much power there is in information. Nation media and other corporates need to start looking at the great potential that is in local content and start investing in it. The mainstream media controls trends of how things are ran in our kind of economies. Promote local content and our nation will be moving ahead.

Challenge
While its great to use Facebook and Twitter, I think we need to get  a little local. Let innovators come up with great local social networks that we can all be members of. Iborian.com is a great social network (with a few flaws that we can get the owner to work on), Whive.com is at it, John Karanja is doing a good job on it and even has a mobile version. We should promote our own and not view them as competition. Local Q & A at Majibu is also a great innovation that I think we should all engage in solving small issues and keeping a database for future reference since most issues are issues that other’s have experienced.

It is everyone’s duty to keep their role.

Kenya also received the Government Leadership Award.

Zain’s ZAP mobile money service also received Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked Service which also includes its service in Kenya.

Africa is really showing potential in software and mobile innovations and this is a great improvement from where we have been in the past.

Get the rest of the award winners at the GSM World website

Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom Ltd, has asked the government, specifically the licensing and regulatory commission, CCK to treat each operator equally and charge new players same fees Safaricom paid for their 3G licence, a whooping $25 million.

Its a nice thing that Safaricom has served us with all its might, while enjoying a monopoly and making a killing out of it. Safaricom has so far recovered their license fee and made more than enough profits from the users by over charging and in my view, we should let other players get easier terms since they have lesser subscribers and times have changed. Bandwidth is cheaper and more available too.

I really do not think its fair to the consumers not to allow the other players come in with easier terms because Safaricom will continue to control the prices.

As much as Safaricom has the best mobile internet service, its also the most expensive available. CCK, do us good by licensing other players and lets see where this takes our country.

I was in Nairobi when Safaricom launched the 7-day unlimited internet offer and I still had some data left on my account so I decided to use that until its finished then i can try the offer. Unfortunately I had to travel out of Kenya on Wednesday and at the airport, I managed to finish the data. When I got to my destination, I recharged my line and subscribed to the 7 day offer (Which I had actually just received an ad of via SMS a moment earlier while still out of Kenya). Unfortunately, I tried to connect and the connection was established but no data available. Connection kept timing out. When I called customer care, which got through to really quickly, they told me that I could not get the offer while roaming and as disappointed as I was, they promised to follow the case through to see what help I could get. I couldnt even get to connect using my normal airtime billing so I had to stay without the connection.

Next day a lady from Safaricom calls to just let me know they are working on the issue and they will be in touch. Another day later, they refund the airtime to my account, am able to use my account. Now that may sound like nothing to write about but please try call customer care in Tanzania, I have tried Vodacom, I will never try ever again. You just have no rights with the networks in Tanzania. Zain has an “unlimited” package for data which happens to be limited to 400mb. Try call them about it…

Congrats Michael Joseph, Safaricom made me proud to be a Kenyan today.

Safaricom and Equity bank have moved a step higher to strengthen their working relationship by introducing new ATM withdraw for M-Pesa through the Equity Bank ATM network. Equity Bank, Kenya’s largest bank in the aspect of account holders joins hand with Kenya’s largest money transfer service. Currently, M-Pesa has over 8 million users while Equity Bank offers 550 ATM points countrywide.

Just recently, Equity partnered with the 3rd competitor of Safaricom’s M-Pesa, yuCash offering similar services.

Well, Safaricom, thanks to M-Pesa, has done it again by scooping the Gold Award on the category Best Mobile Money Services for M-Pesa Money Transfer Service. Makes it the solo African winner. Below are the final winners of the Mobile Content Awards 2009

Winners – Mobile Content Awards 2009

Best Operator

Gold – Orange UK
Silver – CSL
Bronze – FREEDOM4 WiFi

Best Handset

Gold – HTC for HTC Hero
Silver – Nokia for Nokia 5800
Bronze – Research in Motion for BlackBerry Curve 8900 Smartphone

Most Innovative Business Model

Gold – Orange UK for Orange Dolphin
Silver – Spin3 for Mobile Casino Partner Program
Bronze – i-wood for Permission Based Mobile Marketing

Best Handset Application

Gold – Financial Times for FT iPhone Application
Silver – Alchemy Content / MSHK for Ministry of Sound Clubbers Guide to Ibiza iPhone Application
Bronze – Airborne Mobile for Homes on Mobile Phones Real Estate Application

Best Marketing Campaign

Gold – Samsung Mobile UK for Carphone Warehouse Interactive In Store Window Display
Silver – OgilvyOne for Kodak Snow Stories Mobile Application
Bronze – Clickatell for SMS Speech Excerpts to Global Citizens by President Obama (From Cairo to Ghana)

Best Social Communities and UGC

Gold – Utel for FOTOCHAT
Silver – aka-aki for The People Nearby Application
Bronze – Cellufun, Inc for Cellufun

Best Technology Innovation

Gold –  Movidia for MA1110
Silver – dotMobi for Instant Mobilizer
Bronze – DeviceAnywhere for DeviceAnywhere Proof Center

Best Mobile TV and Video Service

Gold – Vantrix Corporation for Media Profiler
Silver – QuickPlay Media for PrimeTime2Go
Bronze – Mobix Interactive for 3 on Demand

Best Mobile Game and Gambling Service

Gold – Spin3 for Mobile Gambling Software
Silver – Cellectivity for Bet2Go Mobile
Bronze – HeroCraft for High Speed 3D

Best Mobile Money Services

Gold – Safaricom for M-Pesa Money Transfer Service
Silver – Accumulate for Accumulate Mobile Everywhere
Bronze – Valimo Wireless for Valimo Mobile ID

Best Start-Up Company

Winner – eyeSight Mobile Technologies

Industry Personality of the Year

Winner – Pieter de Villiers of Clickatell

M-Pesa is what it is today because of Safaricom and its subscribers, the Kenyan People

This is not the kind of mood one likes to wake up with but I read an article yesterday by Olga Morawczynski (Whose page at CGAP gives a 404 page maybe for a good reason)  which she wrote for CGAP trying to tell us what we don’t know about M-Pesa, Kenya’s mobile money transfer. I feel obliged to say that his research (If any) is biased. Her findings are inaccurate and his theories incorrect. This article was published in July which means nothing much has changed since then.

I am here to talk about the role of Safaricom, the Kenyan citizen and the unseen push to the success of M-Pesa. Am here at the perception you have put up and the mentality you have created that M-Pesa is only for poor people. I may not be rich but am not poor. I am one of the millions of people using M-Pesa. I feel the racial divide here. If this product was implemented anywhere else in the world, it would have worked just as well, because its a great product. Because its an innovative product. In CGAP’s article base, there seems to be a big percentage on M-Pesa but most of it coming out as a poor man’s solution. I want to put out a few points here.

1. Safaricom’s role in M-Pesa was vital. Maybe because no one else believe in the idea enough to try it on their platform. If we go by Olga’s findings or insinuations, seems like Safaricom and the Kenyan people were being used as an experimental pad, we took all the crap and when there was success, here comes Europe trying to show how the success was theirs. Well, no one disputes the fact that they did a good thing, but we did too. I feel part of the M-Pesa success as a user – and it has been of great help to me. I feel insulted by this article, I feel downtrodden. Maybe I should ask how much money one has to pay to get an article published at CGAP on them – I guess the answer might be am from the poor Africa I cant afford.
2. Kenya was right for the product: The same product has been launched in Tanzania by Vodacom and almost a year later, its still to get off the ground. It maybe the people’s reception to the idea or the company’s marketing strategy for the product. Mobile money transfer in Tanzania has many players with 3 different competitors but its not as popular as it is in Kenya.
   
3. The European companies that came up with the idea to use Kenya as a testing pad for M-Pesa had just designed it as a Micro finance loan repayment solution. Kenyans made it a money transfer platform. Safaricom and Kenyans played the role of making them believe that it could grow as big.
4. M-Pesa has been beneficial to Kenyans of all classes, not only the poor as stated in his article.
   
5. M-Pesa was really popular in Kenya way before the post-election violence, so that did not play the major role described in one of your articles

In conclusion, I think this writer owes Kenyans and Safaricom an apology. Am sure she will get a glimpse of this article and I hope she does the right thing or responds to this article with his view. Africans have been over the years been used as research pads and its unfair, its time you took us for what we are.