Safaricom has partnered with media houses in Kenya to launch a new Ksh 20 a day subscription bundle giving access to e-newspapers to its subscribers.
Safaricom subscribers who sign up to the bundle will have access to either The Standard Group’s The Standard, Saturday Standard, Sunday Standard and The Nairobian and The Nation Media Group’s Daily Nation, Saturday Nation, Sunday Nation and The Business Daily.
“The world is quickly evolving to be digitally-led and we see our customers increasingly seeking ways in which they can achieve their goals by tapping into the convenience of their smartphone. We are glad to partner with media houses to digitise the newspaper channel and make them available on the mobile phone,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
The service can be accessed by visiting Safaricom.com and selecting the “Discover” option followed by “Newspapers”, upon which a customer will see newspapers available for purchase. Customers will need to have their data on when accessing the portal as each purchase is linked to their mobile phone number for ease of access.
In addition to the portal, customers can also dial *550# to purchase the newspapers. Purchased publications will appear under “My Newspaper” tab for 7 days after purchase.
This deal comes weeks after the firm launched similar subscription deals with digital education service providers such as Eneza Education, Shupavu among others.
Though the deal is making newspapers available to all smartphone customers in the country at KES 20 per issue. Safaricom is pushing to grow its airtime sales by enabling them buy newspapers daily and read them on the go with each purchased issue available for 7 days.
The KES 20 price per newspaper includes data usage meaning a customer’s data bundle will not be consumed when reading through each paper. No registration or signup will be necessary neither will customers be requested to download and install any application.
