Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecom operator, is launching an ultra high-speed broadband service a year after the first 5G trial.
They believe that this new service would primarily concentrate on the country’s major cities before spreading to other areas of the country over the next 12 months.
“During Covid we have seen alot of customers wanting to work from home, whether these are individual customers, kids at home, so there are learning from home and also businesses, especially small businesses also start to establish their homes as their offices, so the work stops becoming a place but a space, so going forward we have to enable working from home or working from anywhere, in any space,” said Peter Ndegwa , CEO, Safaricom.
It is also a guarantee of increased financial sales for the company. Safaricom’s sales had tripled by 2020, thanks to the introduction of 4G in 2015. The firm is now looking to grow into new markets.
“We are looking at expanding Mpesa beyond Kenya, we have already expressed interest to enter Ethiopia and we are going through that process. Hopefully if we get in there, we will continue to accelerate growth. More globally, we are looking at partnering with others so that Mpesa becomes the partner of choice for others including Visa and PayPal. We’ve signed many partnerships across the world. ” added Peter Ndegwa.
According to Newzoo’s 2019 Global Mobile Industry research, Kenya has just over 10 million smartphone connections out of over 50 million mobile network subscriptions.
Although Safaricom’s 5G launch is a significant step forward for the continent’s network, its Kenya customers should be willing to pay more for internet data and connectivity.
Educator, writer and legal researcher at Alafarika for Studies and Consultancy.