Word: safaricom
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...Kenya, a country where 40% of people live on a dollar a day, mobile phone operator Safaricom recently unveiled a deal that gives average consumers one gigabyte of data (only enough to satisfy the lightest of web surfers) for about $32 - and that was touted as a bargain. Other firms offer unlimited but extremely slow Internet connections, barely capable of making Skype calls, for about $40 per month. "No one can [guarantee] there will be a 90% drop next year, but hopefully there will be," says Christopher Stork, senior researcher at Research ICT Africa, a technology analysis firm based...
...example. They're now a booming market in the developing world, but historically, companies vastly underestimated their potential. In 2000, when Vodafone bought a large stake in a Kenyan cell-phone company, it figured that the market in Kenya would max out at 400,000 users. Today that company, Safaricom, has more than 10 million. The company has done it by finding creative ways to serve low-income Kenyans. Its customers are charged by the second rather than by the minute, for example, which keeps down the cost. Safaricom is making a profit, and it's making a difference. Farmers...
...Kenyan government is in for a windfall. The government owns 60% of Safaricom, and 25% of that stake is up for sale. With Safaricom shares starting at seven U.S. cents, that means the government could make 50 billion shillings - about $780 million - on the sale...
...this being Kenya, one of the most corrupt nations on Earth, the Safaricom offering has raised the suspicions of the country's business bloggers. The Kenyan opposition says the sale violates Kenyan privatization laws. And they're worry that other powerful Kenyans may be behind a Guernsey-based company called Mobitelea, which owns a stake in Vodafone Kenya, which in turn owns 40% of Safaricom. Of these allegations, Michael Joseph, the CEO of Safaricom, told the Daily Nation, "I hope they do not detract potential investors from investing in a very strong company with strong growth prospects." Joseph said that...
...incumbent Mwai Kibaki in December, had to dial back his distaste for the offering. Once he realized that the sale would go ahead, it became obvious that standing in the way would be deeply unpopular among supporters who wanted to invest. "Mr. Odinga has always supported the privatization of Safaricom but has objected to secretive manner in which it was conducted," Odinga spokesman Salim Lone said. "He did not want his supporters not to buy something that other people in the country - poor people with 10,000 shillings to spare - were going to be buying...