Safaricom Kenya

The man who has replaced Mr Joseph, Mr Bob Collymore, inherits a company which now commands over 75 per cent of the mobile telephone market in Kenya. Riding on the wave of success of the M-PESA concept, the first of its kind in the world, Safaricom is poised to roll out other new services in the market, which Mr Joseph says will give it even more headstart and give the competition a hard time. M-PESA is itself a pioneering concept that allows telephone subscribers to have “money in their phones”, and to pay for goods and services.

Now, anyone with a cellphone and an account can operate from anywhere in the world and send or receive money within seconds. The concept has won the company awards and accolades.

Mr Joseph is certain that the focus on the ordinary person has paid dividends heavily: “There are lots of reasons why we have succeeded. One is because we concentrate on the customer needs. The man in the matatu (public transport vehicle) you know...that is our customer. Our entire orientation was moulded by that”.

Of the M-PESA concept, Mr Joseph attributes its success to the fact that “we went out of our way to cover what was not covered before”. The result was a resounding success. “Many money products are trying to copy us — but nothing beats M-PESA. Nothing even comes close”.

Of all the awards they have won, Safaricom employees hold The Most Respected Company of The Year Award dearest. It has been won three times in a row.

The Company’s immediate focus is to assist the youth, especially musicians, to make a start in life: “The future belongs to them and we want to be associated with them. Ours is not a one-off with artistes. We want to help them grow, support them. That is the segment of the market we are targeting”.

On the price wars that hit the ceiling as the year drew to a close, Joseph is emphatic that when competitors brought down the cost of calling, the biggest player, too, had to as dictated by the situation. He says that Safaricom was justified to charge what they were charging, up to Sh8 per minute on some tariffs — “This is a business, not charity. We had to pass the benefits to our subscribers and shareholders who want returns on their investment. When we started, the costs were higher and there were reasons to charge what we did”.

When the competitors brought down calling charges, “we had to because we could not allow our customers not to benefit from the charges”. In any case, he says, Airtell did not trigger the price wars. “The Communications Commission of Kenya lowered the interconnectivity charges and we responded. Everybody else responded”. Mr Joseph feels the prices may stabilise just where they are and neither move down nor up. And he rules out further price reductions from Safaricom, saying “if we went down further, we would be accused of using our dominance in the market”.

Mr Joseph has fond memories of the country: “Kenyans have been very welcoming...they are hospitable people. This is a great country and I have nothing but fond memories of those ten years”. Mr Collymore who has replaced Joseph is a former Chief Officer in Charge of Corporate Affairs at Vodaphone. He has his plate full keeping the 737,000 shareholders happy.