Orange Kenya yesterday announced a Kshs 20 daily bundle dubbed ‘Jienjoy na mbao’. The promotion will run for 60 days starting March 2, 2011. Subscribers dial *20# to subscribe to the offer which gives them 200 on-net minutes, 100 on-net SMS and a 10 Mb bundle. The promotion was announced by Orange/Telkom Kenya’s new Head of Marketing and Strategy, Florence Saronge, and Orange CEO Mikhael Ghossein, at an event held Wednesday morning at their Telkom Plaza offices in Nairobi.
“This is not a price war, customers need price and quality, people are moving for quality and value for money,” said Ghossein. Ghossein explained that Orange had decided to make the offer a promotion in order to gauge its reception. Over the next 2 months, Orange will monitor the usage of the promotion by its current 2.5 million subscribers and new subscribers it anticipates as a result of this promotion. Depending on the impact on call quality, the operator would then decide whether to adjust the offer including on whether to make it a permanent offer. The tariff targets subscribers over 30 years of age (average 33) who make up for approximately 45% of the mobile usage.

Ghossein also said that focus should be on the fight between content providers and ecosystems rather than mobile operators. He also revealed that most subscribers for the firms data offerings opted for its low cost 100 Mb bundle at Ksh 150 (about $2) rather than its cheaper larger bundles such as the 1Gb bundle priced at Ksh 850 (about $ 10.5).
Orange would also be opening 3 more shops in an effort to takes its services and get closer to its customers. Other measures that would strengthen the brand in the year include the launch of a Hi - Speed 3G GSM network that would see maximum download speeds of between 21 - 42 Mbps.
Responding to queries from the media, Ghossein said that Orange was sharing 40% of its Base Transmitter Stations (BTS) with other operators in an effort to cut costs. However, he lamented over high operation costs. A BTS site cost 160,000 Euros to put up with a monthly fee of Ksh 45,000 (approximately $ 5,625) to the regulator. Orange also paid approximately Ksh 1 billion to the regulator in frequency fees. Ghossein said such costs coupled with falling tariffs were making it difficult (economically) to set up new BTS in rural areas. He however said that an infrastructure firm setting up such BTS and then leasing them to operators would be a better option.
In a different event, Ministry of Information and Communication permanent secretary, Dr. Bitange Ndemo said that the charging method for operators would be reviewed in the next few months. This would see operators charged a fee based on frequencies rather than the current method that sees operators per transmitter site. Ndemo said that the new mode of charging would be more punitive to smaller operators who have previously been hoarding frequencies on a few transmitters hoping to be bought out by larger operators.