[kictanet] Talk-2-Safaricom, Day 2 of 6:-Competition Issues

[Odhiambo Washington]

On 7 February 2017 at 08:16, Walubengo J via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> We wish to thank all those who managed to contribute on Day 1, Consumer
> Issues.  Feel free to throw in some belated questions for Day1 - as long as
> you keep the relevant subject line.
>
> Today we move onto Day2 issues that deal with competition/ market
> dominance issues.
>
> The current data from CA
> <http://www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/STATISTICS/Sector%20Statistics%20Report%20Q1%202016-2017.pdf>
> (Q1, 2016-17) could be a useful guideline for the dominance debate. It  gives
> Safcom the following market shares:-
>
> a)    Mobile Subscriber population (69% of all subscribers, closest rival
> has 17.5%)
> b)    Voice Traffic (76% of all mobile voice traffic, closest rival is at
> 13.8%)
> c)    Data/Internet Subsector, (63.2% of mobile internet subscriptions,
> closest rival is at 21%)
> d)    Mobile Money Transactions ( 81% of all mobile money transactions,
> closest rival is at 16%)
>

On dominance on the above (except (c), I cannot blame Safaricom or even try
to mention dominance. It's something they have worked for. However, they
also need to use this gigantic position to ensure coverage everywhere while
lowering tariffs on voice, data and mostly Money Transfer fees.
Talking of coverage, I have severally tweeted Safaricom about the lack of
network coverage along the road from Kapiti Area all the way to that
turn-off to Nanyuki. I think the place is called Marwa. I am wondering
whether they take the feedback seriously or it's just that they don't
expect much revenue from travelers on that section of the journey to
Nyeri/Nanyuki. And what about to Ole Polos (asking for Barrack!) ??

A deep analysis will tell you that Safaricom charges for money transfer are
very expensive. The trick is in the amounts you transfer - and they take
advantage of the fact that most clients will want to do a transfer at once,
instead of in bits, which I don't think is fair. The cost of sending 2,500
whether at once or in 1,000, 1000, 500 should be the same. Afterall it's
all _digital_ money, not some individuals carrying the cash to
destinations/final users :-)

On money transfer and especially with regard to customer (or is it
consumer?) protection, I still think Safaricom is capable of doing more
with regard to those transactions where someone ends up sending to the
wrong number. Much as they have introduced number lookups from the contacts
stored on the SIM card, I believe number lookups from the conntacts stored
on the phone shouldn't be such an uphill task. Do they have plans for this?
Being almost the world's pioneer of mobile money transfer, can they also
pioneer a legal mechanism to deal with/mitigate cases where people have
sent money to the wrong numbers by mistake? That is one area that remains
wanting.

At the moment, their 15sec option to mitigate that isn't quite intuitive.
The "Cancel' option actually means 'go ahead and do the transfer', but most
people have confused it with what "Cancel" in any other realm means. They
should re-engineer the option to have the meaning/options expected by
users..(Oh, was I supposed to give feedback or ask questions?) Besides,
they should increase the time to 30secs, and also sponsor a media campaign
to enlighten their clients.


>
> I am sure we cannot ask or blame Safaricom for what it may consider a
> successful state of affairs :-)
>

We can, to an extent. Other MNOs are not on 4G platform so far. Safaricom
got the frequency as a gift from the govt - for free. That cemented their
dominance in the Data/Internet subsector. Question is: Are they willing to
share their data infrastructure with other players?


-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
"Oh, the cruft."
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