NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 6 – Mobile phone services operator Zain Kenya it intends to lease services from its competitors once the anticipated marine fibre optic cables land in the country later this year, Managing Director Rene Meza said on Monday.
Mr Meza pointed out that with so many of their rivals owning a stake in the TEAMS and SEACOM cables, leasing would be a much cheaper option for them.
“We don’t have any stake with the cable companies because once the cables get here, we will probably be able to lease from the different offers which will be in the market,” he told a press briefing.
Safaricom, Telkom Kenya and Essar Telecom Kenya (formerly Econet Wireless) have a 20 percent, 20 and 10 percent shareholding respectively in The East Africa Marine System (TEAMS).
The investments will enable these firms to provide high speed data and broadband services at affordable rates.
Mr Meza added that their decision was also informed by the expectation that transmission costs in the telecoms sectors would come down by up to 70 percent.
“We wanted to get the benefit of demand and offers in the market and the fact that prices will be substantially lower than they are today,” he emphasised.
Mr Meza spoke during the launch of their loyalty program dubbed ‘Rewardz’ that offers incentives to subscribers for their support since the company’s re-branding exercise in August last year.
Since the program, 1.5 million customers have joined the network and this was the subscriber base that was being targeted in the reward scheme.
“Zain has achieved remarkable growth in its customer base and as we celebrate this growth, we want our customers to get maximum value out of the relationship we have built with them,” Mr Meza boasted adding that they had invested Sh95 million into the initiative.
Customers will be able to redeem their points for a wide range of products and services including mobile handsets, computer hardware, household appliances and electronics.
NOTE: Customers will be required to enrol by dialling *796# and followed the instructions. Once enrolled they will earn points every time they use any of the Zain services including voice calls, Short Message Service and its value-added services.
They will them accumulate level points (for every Sh10 spent they will earn one level point) to qualify as Bronze, Silver or Gold member.
