Orange’s Did you Know campaign, which earlier in the year raffled Safaricom’s feathers helped boost its subscriber base by 16%, the company has said.
“The mass market voice offering played a major role in the company’s growth with the campaign netting the additional customers,” said the company is a statement.
In February, Orange, Kenya’s third largest telecommunications provider attracted the wrath of Safaricom when its adverts compared tariffs between its network and ‘the other network’ denoted by a green SIM card.
The advert presented Orange as the cheapest provider when calling across other networks at only Sh3 against the ‘other network’s’ standing charge of Sh4.
Safaricom protested at the advertising regulatory agency, Advertising Standards Committee saying the use of its corporate colour in the advert was meant to lure its customers to Orange.
In March the agency ordered Orange to pull down the advert from the local media, but now Orange says the one-month campaign paid off. It appears Safaricom had couase to worry.
Statistics from the industry regulator, Communications Authority of Kenya show that by the end of June, Orange customers stood at 2,685,368, up from 2,453,893 in March when the cease order was issued.
The firm (Orange) says it will now build on the additional customer numbers by enhancing its network reliability. Earlier on in the year it pumped Sh1.4 billion into replacing transport copper wires with fibre infrastructure, an investment it is angling to increase its market share in the corporate data segment.
The campaign attributable customer numbers were revealed even as the company received 17 vehicles from Vehicle and Equipment Leasing Limited for use in remote places. According to Mr Issack Muthama, Orange’s Chief Marketing Officer, the company opted to lease the company for Sh114 million as a cost-cutting measure.
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