Safaricom’s post-paid customers up 9.6pc in three months to March

Safaricom’s post-paid customers increased 9.6 per cent in the first three months of the year even as the telecommunications firm announced the termination of one of the monthly plan tariffs.

Industry data released by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that Safaricom’s post paid subscribers increased from 431,425 in December 2013 to 472,974 in March this year.

In May the firm announced it had terminated the Karibu tariff, its most popular post-paid plan, terming it as “loss-making.”

“We are in the process of reviewing the Karibu tariff and we should launch it within this financial year. Even though this tariff constitutes the bulk of our post-paid customers, our other post-paid plans are also growing,” said Nzioka Waita, the director of corporate affairs at Safaricom.

The Karibu post-paid tariff has two price plans, one for Sh1,000 per month and the other for Sh2,500 per month.

Safaricom’s 41,549 new post-paid customers marked the highest growth by a single operator in this segment which according to the CA had a total of 607,569 subscribers in the industry as of March.

Airtel Kenya had 130,005 post-paid clients as of March 2014, a 4.54 per cent jump from the 124,355 customers it had at the end of last year.