As Safaricom loses subscribers, Airtel builds on market share gain

Kenya’s second largest telco by market share Airtel has moved to attract more subscribers this festive season by launching Sh1 bob per minute Airtel to other networks and free Airtel to Airtel calls in a campaign which will run until January 31, 2019.

The campaign dubbed ChapaStori will allow Airtel customers to make calls to any network at 1 bob/min for 24 hours while enjoying free on-net calls all day. All ChapaStori bundles come with free 100 mins for all Airtel to Airtel calls per day.

Airtel’s new offer comes in two main bundles including a Ksh 15 bundle valid for 24 hours and a Ksh 30 bundle that allows customers the same benefits as the former but comes with three day validity.

The development comes hot in the heels of the industry’s third quarter report released by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on Tuesday which showed that the industry’s main player Safaricom furter lost grip on the market share while Airtel built on its second quarter strong performance and gained a percentage point to stand at 22.3% up from the 21.4% it posted in the second quarter.

CA’s report showed that Airtel’s subscriber numbers rose from 9.7 million to 10.4 million between June and September 2018, numbers that the regulator attributed to acquisition of new sim cards by subscribers and price reviews by the New Delhi headquartered company.

Airtel’s price review will serve to woo subscribers with Airtel Kenya Managing Director, Prasanta Das Sarma describing the offer as a festive period giveaway to its customers.

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“We know that many of our customers will be taking time off to rest and reconnect with friends and family during the festive season. Therefore, we are happy to be launching this new campaign that is unmatched as it allows our customers to talk worry free.” said Mr Sarma during the launch of the campaign.

He went on to add that, “This new offering espouses our philosophy on products which are easy to use, easy to subscribe to, without any hidden charges or conditions. This is unlike products being offered by other telcos.”