Telkom Crafts New Strategy to Grow Market Share

NAIROBI, Kenya

Orange is implementing a long-term business strategy to enhance client acquisition and retention, the company CEO Mickael Ghossien said yesterday, under pressure to explain a sustained drop in revenues that has dimmed the firm’s outlook. He said the company is focused on quality customer experience through innovative products and solutions to its customers.

“Orange is keen on the innovation of comprehensive products and solutions that assure the market of quality services and value for money,” said Mr Ghossien at the Telkom offices in Nairobi.

Orange has launched a host of products and services including advance airtime top-up service PEWA; FB Bila Net, a service that allows Orange mobile subscribers with basic entry level phones to enjoy Facebook browsing features and Ni Sort, a ‘pay for me’ voice service.

Orange has also launched the Orange Beat Ya Street dance competition targeting the youth. The first phase of the campaign was personified by Julius Yego, Kenya’s You Tube athlete, demonstrating a great Kenyan story of opportunity enhanced by internet, he said. It has also introduced a new data bundle of 20MB.

The company has also reduced the prices of two other mobile data bundles; the 50MB bundle from Kshs100 to Ksh50 and the 100MB bundle from Kshs150 to Kshs120. “This new data offering will give our subscribers more flexibility in choosing their preferred data bundle. The price reduction of the 50MB and 100MB data bundles make our offers more competitive in the market,” said Mr Ghossien.

He added that Orange believes increased usage of the pay-as-you-go tariff will give subscribers more opportunity to experience the benefits of its integrated offering on voice services. On the corporate market front, Orange has launched a series of solutions for businesses.

The introduction of the Audio and Web Conferencing Services as well as Orange Telepresence Centre earlier this year provides alternatives to face-to-face meetings thus saving on costs and improving productivity. Mr Ghossien also said that the company’s countrywide transformation of its infrastructure is on course to replace its copper cables with fibre optic.

“This long term project will enhance our network’s reliability with the installation of next generation switches around the country,” he added. Orange signed an agreement with Eaton Towers, a pan-African infrastructure sharing company, that will invest in upgrades and build new towers to provide improved coverage and network quality.

The company has also renewed its management contract of the National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure NOFBI with the Kenyan Government, through the ministry of Information Communication and Technology, for another three years. The contract that was signed in March this year ensures that the company will continue with the maintenance of the government owned fibre optic infrastructure.