Orange Kenya has announced an 8 percent revenue growth for the overall business for the first half of this year, compared to the same period last year. company CEO, Mickael Ghossein, says that the business has made major investments since the beginning of the year, enabling it to better compete in the market as well as offer more quality service leading to better retention.
“We have experienced a 40 percent jump in mobile network activity as well as an incremental growth across all business segments, demonstrating the strategy put in place at the beginning of the year is effective,” he said.
The aggressive Did you Know campaign on the company’s Tujuane mobile tariff launched at the beginning of the year has seen an increase in the number of mobile subscribers by 15.6 percent at the end of March 2014, in comparison to the end of March 2013.
“We are also certain of a further increase in subscriber numbers for the period ending June 2014, in comparison to June 2013,” says Ghossein, adding that the same will be reflected in the Industry regulator’s quarterly statistics report for the same period.
The company also recorded a combined 34 percent growth in mobile voice and data, following an ongoing mobile data awareness campaign and investment in additional 3G networks across the country, thereby improving on service provision. The company’s latest 3G expansion has seen mobile customers in Eldoret and Nakuru increase their data usage by 21 percent and 39 percent respectively.
“The results are a confirmation that our strategy to grow the business across the board is working”, says Ghossein. The Corporate Data segment experienced a 13% growth during the same period, adds Ghossein.
The growth in corporate data is due to the company’s transformational programme which began last year, with an initial investment of KSh 1.4 billion, to replace transport copper cabling with fibre infrastructure. This has enhanced network reliability and improved efficiency leading to growth in market share. In addition, it has enabled the company to connect 35 counties to its countrywide network.
The company’s EBITDA has also gone up by 7.7 points, it has also invested KSh 2.5 billion to further its expansion agenda for 2014.