NAIROBI: Airtel Kenya has launched a new bundled tariff to challenge conventional post paid tariff models. The move is aimed at growing the telcos market share in the country’s competitive telecommunications industry.
The UnlimiNET bundle allows users to enjoy 20 free minutes voice calls to any network, 100 free SMSs to any network and 100MB data daily from as little as Sh50 each day. For Sh100 a week, one gets 300MBs, 60 minutes to any network and 500 SMSs to any network. “We sought to find out the essential services that most of our consumers demand the most on a daily basis and what the new tariff does is that it allows users get all this in one bundle,” stated Airtel Kenya Chief Executive Officer Adil El Youssefi.
Users who opt for monthly payments can either pay Sh1,000 each month for 2GB of data, 400 minutes of voice calls and 2,000 SMSs to any network or Sh2,000 for 6GB, 1,200 minutes and 10,000 SMSs. The service provides customers with free access to several services including Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram and Gmail within their subscription period even after exhausting their 100MBs of data.
“Users can get voice, SMS and data from as low as Sh50 without being afraid of their data running out because even if it does, they can continue to access some of the key services like Whatsapp, Instagram and Gmail free of charge,” he said.
The launch by Airtel is the latest move by mobile service providers to get more subscribers to sign up for services which have more returns compared pre-paid models. A fortnight ago, Orange introduced a new post-paid plan for individual subscribers dubbed the Orange Ongea plan that gives subscribers the option of Sh1,000 or Sh3,000 monthly bundles to access Orange Mobile voice and data services.
Figures from the Communication Authority of Kenya indicate that pre-paid mobile subscribers continue to dominate the customer portfolio for all three mobile service providers with more than 99 per cent of subscribers falling in this bracket.
However, the number of postpaid subscriptions registered the largest growth in the last quarter recording a 9.6 per cent jump compared to 1.1 per cent increase in the number of pre-paid subscribers. Safaricom is, however, mulling terminating two of its post-paid calling tariffs citing unprofitably of the same.
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