Category Archives: Safaricom

Reading the Access Kenya Tea Leaves

one of three
Over the last few years’ shareholders have voted to allow their companies to reproduce abridged financial statement summaries in the newspaper. One of the benefits of these resolutions would be to reduce costs of administering to thousands of shareholder, who previously were entitled to receive a full copy of a company’s audited results by mail.

Now companies have the full accounts on their websites for shareholders, to download, with a summary of the annual general meeting notice, dividend, chairman statement, and financial summary that appear in daily newspapers.

Limited numbers of the accounts are still printed and kept at the company premises, and distributed to analysts, partners, or to any shareholder who requests one. However most shareholders do not have Internet access or computers to read these PDF’s and may miss out on some details of events at the company.

Three companies are about to have their annual general meetings in the next few days, and have all converted to the digital format in lieu of printed copies. Kenya Airways and Safaricom both had their financial year-end in March 2010, while Access Kenya has had a good year (2009), but their meeting was delayed by boardroom wrangles which saw a new chairman brought in, and later by a drop in first half 2010 results (announced earlier this month).

AGM – Auditors Deloitte continue in office (new Chairman Mr. Ndonye was a long time partner there)
– Shareholders will be asked to endorse a concluded deal to buy out the remaining 30% in Openview, which they describe as a company that sells IT equipment to enterprises and corporate customers. Openview had sales in 2009 of 165 million, up from 147m the year before, but it seems the minority owners opted to sell the company to AK (their right under original sale agreement), and a settlement was reached where payment was made by share transfers, but they also agreed to pay Kshs 38 million to settle some claims by AK group biz daily

Notes – Dividend of 0.3 shillings per share will be paid for 2009, amounting to about Kshs 62 million
– AK still enjoys benefit of listing as a group by paying 20% in income tax compared to subsidiaries and other Kenyan corporates, which pay 30%
– Borrowings are up to 724 million (57m in 2009), but overdraft has been reduced from 166 million to 30 million. The group still has an overdraft position of 128 million. The loans are from NIC Bank and CFC Stanbic for both US$ and KES, with the bulk of this borrowing is in US$ which is cheaper (3%) is cheaper than the shillings ones (7%), unless the shilling depreciated significantly. Interest expenses for the year were 44 million compared to 6 million in 2008
– Communications solutions limited charged 370 million as management fee and owes 364 million
– Fibre: AK paid 106 million as investment into TEAMS (62.5 shares)

Shareholders: Has 32,674 shareholders and while there are some top shareholder changes, the AK ESOP has increased stake in the company

Website AK has an active presence on twitter, but is hounded by claims of poor customer service. Also from Twitter: The board has indicated there is strong interest in acquiring the company from three Telco’s but Safaricom have denied being one of them
-@bankelele reading vacationing @alykhansatchu in the star – safaricom share dips back below IPO price as CEO denies interest in buying access kenya
– @jgmbugua MJ is lying. I have impeccable information that they have approached AccessKenya at least three times. TKL, Airtel interested too
– @coldtusker @jgmbugua @bankelele Maybe in the past but does #AccessKenya add real value to @SafaricomLtd today? [I say no]

situs gacor

Bharti Airtel in Kenya

Zain/Bharti shake market: On August 18, Zain Kenya announced new unprecedented low rates for voice calls and SMS in a new tariff war. The new rates for calls of Kshs 3/=(~$0.04) per minute and for SMS of Kshs 1/=(~$0.01), which apply across all networks and are available to all Zain customers, easily trumps their main competitor, and market leader, Safaricom whose rates hover around Kshs 8 for a phone call and Kshs 3.50 for an SMS (and 12/= and 5/= to other networks for the same).

True cheap rates: The new rates have been well received with very popular comments online and a rush by consumers to obtain Zain lines or re-activate old ones. CEO Rene Meza called this a new long dark journey to market dominance [i.e. from 10% now] and one they will tackle aggressively for the long term. But is it sustainable? The last time Zain engaged in a price war, they ended in a bloody loss, with Zain gaining customers but not market share and $90 million in the red.

Airtel Strategy : However Zain Kenya is no more. The push comes from new owners Bharti Airtel of India who completed their takeover of the Zain Africa Group last month and will rebrand the company (in Kenya) by October 2010. They have also set out to re-position the local telecommunications sector in tandem with Essar and France Telecom by lobbying the government for other changes to level the playing field in a market they believe is unfairly dominated by Safaricom and which denies Kenyans true freedom of choice.

At the official launch in July, Airtel executives the emphasized some of their strategies including:
– They are rural focused and will build a rural brand through farming related promotions and CSR activities
– Be a low cost operators; employ low skilled sales force
– Lobby for number portability
– Push for lower interconnection rates which will lead to affordable products
– Lobby for infrastructure sharing i.e. no need to have 5 cell phone towers in a small town (all incurring electricity, security, cement, other charges) town when 1 will do with all Telco’s sharing transmission and fibre
– Work with ecosystem partners, like HP and Eriksson, and have a BPO call centre

Will the government deliver on low connection fees, number portability and infrastructure sharing? At the launch Meza mentioned that the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) had lowered the interconnection tariff from about 4 to 2 shillings effective September 2010.

Short-term losses: Meza said they plan to grow revenue and subscribers, and margins and profits will come later from operating a lower cost structure. And in a back stab at the previous owners (and perhaps minority shareholders), he said for the first time in eight years they have shareholders with the right mind-set to allow them to take opportunities in the market, increase rural penetration and utilise the right technology – by investing Kshs 24 billion (~$296 million) in the next 18 months on rural cell phone sites, revamping their zap money transfer systems, increasing their outlets & distribution network, expanding their 2G network, and rolling out a 3G network by the end of the year (since the license fee was reduced this year, they will be able to cover more parts of Kenya than just Nairobi and Mombasa)

Improve on Marketing: Marketing has always been a weak point at Zain, who keep throwing out too many confusing promotions one after another after another. The Wednesday Nation had a full-page ad for the new Zain (3/= and 1/=) rates and on the adjacent page was a small story touting a tariff for Zain ‘Club 20’ subscribers who could now get free calls and unlimited SMS from 11pm to 6 a.m. within the Zain network only! And all this comes a month after they had launched anotherrevolutionarypromotion. Hopefully this will hopefully change with the recent marketing executive appointments and re-focused brand and strategy.

EDIT – Other Developments
– Zain accuses Safaricom of sabotaging its new price offer
– Safaricom reassures Zain over inter-connect capacity, and says their concerns are premature.
– CEO’s e-mail exchange between Rene Meza (Zain) and Michael Joseph (Safaricom)
– Safaricom launches Masaa tariff with prices of Kshs 2-4 for Safaricom calls and Kshs 3-5 to other networks.
– Orange (France Telecom/Telkom Kenya) make their low cost pitch with Kshs 2 and Kshs 4 for on and off net calls respectively, with free on net calls from 10 AM to 5 PM for Kshs 100 per month ($1.25)
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situs gacor

From Huawei to Makmende

Last Tuesday was a roundabout day that began with the Equity Bank half year results announcement at and ended with Safaricom launch of a U8220 Android phone made by Huawei.

In between I shook hands with James Mwangi, Churchill dodged my paparazzi snap attempt, a friend of mine missed out on a free giveaway of the Huawei phone, and I missed out on buying some shares in Equity Bank as my stockbroker (temporarily) misplaced my funds.

At the Huawei launch, I had interesting chats with one pal on Kenol and another who found out an interesting tale about mobile spectrums – basically Kenyans should ignore mobile phone company promises and forget about 4G as it is reserved for the Kenya military until further notice.

Huawei and Safaricom were jointly launching an android phone to the Kenyan market and since the Safaricom COO was late in traffic as per his boss, Michael Joseph the CEO stepped up and launched the phone on his behalf. The CEO seemed underwhelmed by the occasion, maybe because his retirement was about to be officially announced or maybe because it was because the Smartphone being unveiled would cost about Kshs 30,000 and was nowhere near the $100 (~Kshs 8,000) price for a smartphone which he has commented as being a key target for future data growth.

This ambivalence perhaps cascaded down because when Safaricom ran adverts for the new phone in the next day’s paper, they were advertising a VF845 costing Kshs 16,500 ($206) and not the U8220, which had just been launched. The ‘correct’ ad for the U8220 then ran the following day pricing the phone at 27,200 (~$340)

Two days later, Bank of Africa formally opened their Ngong Road branch at Bishop Magua Center. This is their second branch opening this month after Nakuru and they have set out to go after the not for profit customers. They have launched a Goodwill Current Account with goodies for NGO’s including waiver of monthly ledger fees, cheque book costs, (Kshs) withdrawal/deposits, internal transfers, incoming wires, banker’s cheques, interim statements and a minimum operating balance.

And finally on Friday, in the same building, the iHUb hosted a launch by Kuweni Serious (Get Serious) of a series of clips aimed at getting young Kenyans to participate in the constitutional referendum and in public life and starred Makmende.

Here’s one clip

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situs gacor

Farewell Michael Joseph

Safaricom announced in a statement that their long-serving CEO Michael Joseph will step down in November from the helm of the company. He has been CEO as long as this blog has been around and a search through archives finds these posts

image from the business daily

Long before, the IPO there was a shareholder tug of war evict him in favour of a Kenyan CEO.
In 2006 he gave a talk at the British Council on how the company which started with 5 employees and 17,000 customers, overhauled Celtel and came to be one of the largest revenue earners and taxpayers in Kenya. The talk was given before the IPO and before they launch M-Pesa and had numerous insightful tales, as he was the only spokesperson for the company and he also touched on low education standards, wrong government statistics, the problems at kencell/celtel/zain/ and political battles to succeed his seat.
The first post IPO report shows that he has 2.35 million shares in the company, same as the CFO so probably a contractual bonus.
He has said that post-retirement that he will contemplate becoming a Kenyan citizen. He (and the company) have received many accolades both local and international. Form government, the private sector and he is noted for his CSR efforts especially in the conservation of wildlife and forests.
For many years, he has been Kenya’s Steve Jobs, a man so closely inter-wined with their brand and with a medical history, but whose company had not defined a succession plan until this week. New reports indicate the new CEO will work with MJ for two months from September, and that he will continue on in advisory role even after he leaves the CEO office.

Other Blogs
– Kainvestor asks if he was a corporate legend?
– Ratio Magazine on how the retirement may shake up the local mobile & telecom sector
– Interviews with the CEO

EDIT July 29, 2022.

It was my decision to step down as Safaricom Chairman to devote more time to the investment in Ethiopia and also to Kenya Airways and the creation of a pan-African airline group. – Michael Joseph #SafaricomAGM https://t.co/PtJTUdhrfz pic.twitter.com/pItm57rY8y
— Bankelele (@bankelele) July 29, 2022

Data Collected but Not Processed

So much data is being collected from Kenya citizens these days at various points of transactions by citizens. This is largely in the form of being asked to produce more and more documents to authenticate/verify information that some of the organizations already know or have in their archives – these include:

– Last week (June 30) marked the tax filing deadline Kenyans who rushed to the revenue authority offices and returned forms, while some even managed to file online
– Government workers & civil servants have been filing their annual income and asset returns for about six years now in a wealth declaration exercise – but the forms are just filed away, and for some who participate such as members of parliament, the rules stipulate that no one can look at their forms ever!
– Mobile phone companies have began to comply with a directive (not a law) that asks mobile phone subscribers to register and verify their data in a bid to crack down on terrorism, money laundering, hate crimes etc. A lot of this information’s is already in the hands of the companies e.g. with Safaricom, post-paid subscribers, M-pesa users and any shareholder who registered for dividends by m-pesa last year has already given all of this information – and Safaricom have now issued a statement that m-pesa and post-pay customers won’t have to re-submit their information. Kahenya views the mobile phone registration exercise as being for national security to build a database on citizens that they can tap into if/when they choose to scrutinize.
– From July this year, it has been mandated that there will be Kenya banks share information in a program to improve the assessment of borrowers capability to repay loans and which is hoped will lower the cost of credit (to good re-payers) and amount of bad debts at banks (by filtering out bad re-payers)
– Some banks have changed, others have not. Some like Barclays ask you to bring in a passport photo to open an account, while others like Equity snap your digital picture in their banking hall after you fill out the forms. Still in a single bank you may have an account, but to open another savings or credit card account, you may be asked to produce photocopy of ID, passport photo, and your bank statement
– My problems with custody registrar services who are one of the largest collectors of photocopies of documents, continues to this day; and CRS appear to have been vindicated by the Kenyan stockbrokers fraternity who have endorsed the Kenya capital markets proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering efforts by way of obtaining as much information as they can to ascertain a customers risk profile, nature of business, sources of funds and they are also to report any transactions greater than $10,000 (~Kshs 800,000)

A lot of the information is in paper photocopy form, and in application forms which thousands of people fill out without reading the fine print of what the information can be used for e.g. Safaricom m-pesa dividend mobile phone dividend payment form explicitly stated

Safaricom recognizes the importance of protecting privacy (3.1)… Safaricom collects personal information that we use to profile m-pesa users (3.2) and administer accounts …Safaricom does not share your information with unauthorized persons (3.3)…and you expressly consent and authorize Safaricom to disclose data relating to your dividends to (among others) Kenya police, central bank of Kenya, Kenya anti corruption commission, the central depository & settlement corporation (11.2)

So there is a massive amount of information being collected, but is it being processed? No and Yes. No because it may at most be at most scrutinized at the point of receipt/approval (mainly only in the case of banks) and then filed away to only be retrieved if an account goes bad.

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