Is Safaricom Engaging in Business Malpractice??

Safaricom is a tough act to follow. It’s a company that has been remarkably successful for the past decade or so as Kenya’s leading mobile network. It has over 20 million subscribers and in excess of 15 million M-Pesa users. Over 8 million mobile subscribers use Safaricom as their main Internet Service Provider (ISP). Safaricom absolutely dominates the mobile market in Kenya in all its myriad forms.

A statistic has since been shared that 30% of mobile devices now being sold in Kenya are smartphones. This is really impressive since around a year ago, this number was probably under 10% of ALL mobile devices being sold in Kenya. The second insight was finding out that Safaricom saw a 500% increase in the number of smartphones using its network from a year ago – this growth is quite simply eye-popping! The last thing is finding out that Safaricom intend to stop selling feature phones at their retail stores soon so that they can focus on smartphones exclusively.

This last revelation is quite startling since Safaricom has a reputation of being the “Mwananchi’s” mobile network which meant being focused on the bottom and middle of the pyramid. In fact, you could say that Safaricom IS the “people’s choice” in spite of erratic services which at times are much worse than those of its competitors.


However my main focus is not on their numerous successes but their flaws that never seem to be addressed. Let us start with the annoying daily messages informing you that you have no money in your account balance. It goes something like this:
              "Sorry, your account balance is not sufficient to complete this request.
              Please top up and try again."
It always seems like their is a an automated system sending this message at a certain time; I receive this message even when my balance is far above sufficient.

The other Con is the sudden disappearance of airtime once it is loaded into the phone. Take for example you load 100KSH, one minute later the phone balance is reading a mere 24KSH having not called, used the Internet or subscribed to any service. Make the mistake of loading airtime before sleeping, on waking up in the morning the account balance will be reading 0.00KSH. Safaricom does it again!!! It is a "PATA POTEA" game with them.

Last but not least, for the sake of my readers, I cannot fail to mention the Unlimited Messages, named so despite being so limited. It all started out so well, and it wouldn't be false stating that the service had actually gained Safaricom new clients. However, the service was short lived after the company so it fit to limit the number of messages one could send per subscription.

From 10KSH for Unlimited Messages in a day to 10KSH for 200SMS per day. REALLLLY!!! What a major fail for Safaricom. Kenyan youth were the main beneficiaries of the Unlimited SMS and the new subscription is not suitable for the consumer base since they lack a source of income to sustain such spending.

Finally, I tried to trick the system (and I know am not the only one) by unsubscribing immediately after subscribing. Awe unto me, Safaricom had prepared for such an eventuality. They duly slashed my 10KSH the next day despite having subscribed for one day.

 HMMMM!!! Was I just robbed in broad daylight?? 

Needless to say, I gladly put my scissors to work and now am swimming in the competitors pool, saving some airtime with WhatsApp and Viber making sure I do not take an extra coin out of my pocket than I need to.