Author: David Indeje

Safaricom on Monday posted a 6 percent decline in profit at Ksh 33 Billion for the September quarter with expectations of lower core earnings for FY21. The company had registered a KSh35 billion in the same period a year ago. The decline was attributed to lower M-Pesa earnings following the Central Bank of Kenya’s directive to remove fees on transactions less than KSh1000.  M-Pesa revenue fell by Ksh6.1 billion while income from betting witnessed KSh700 million drop. “The free cash transfers have weighed hard on our half-year results. M-Pesa revenues now account for 30 percent of total revenues in comparison…

Safaricom targets 4 million additional customers to its network with the introduction of SIM cards with the 0112, 0113, 0114, and 0115 prefixes at all Safaricom Shops and Dealers Outlets countrywide. Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa says the new phone numbers will help meet a strong demand for their services, especially driven by new mobile data customers. Growing demand for data has seen Safaricom introduce ‘4G for Home’ internet that consists of a 4G enabled SIM card and a 4G router that takes advantage of Safaricom’s countrywide 4G+ network to provide high-speed home internet in areas outside the company’s home fibre…

WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned chat app, has redesigned its storage management tool for users to easily identify, review, and bulk delete content from their phones. The messaging platform says it now offers easy cleanup suggestions by bucketing both large files and media that has been forwarded many times, sorting files by size in descending order, and providing a way to preview files before deleting them.  “You can also see a preview of media before selecting one or multiple items to delete,” the company said in a statement. The new storage management tools are rolling out to users worldwide this week. When…

Coronavirus positive cases hit new daily highs in Kenya with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday announcing new measures to halt increasing COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. According to the President, “It is most unfortunate that we have experienced a reversal  38 days later.” If COVID bed occupancy had gone down by 60%, giving us comfort to re-open in September, the occupancy has now gone up by 140% during the 38 days of easing COVID measures. According to the Head of State, the COVID positivity rate had shot up from 4% in September to an average of 16% in October 4 times…

Kenya and TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) have inked a KSh1.31 billion grant agreement to support infrastructure projects in Mombasa, Busia, and Malaba. National Treasury said the money will pay for construction of Busia Jumuiya market, the road linking Busia One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) to Busia Town, and construction of Magongo Road in Mombasa. TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) is an aid-for-trade organisation funded by development agencies of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, EU, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and the USA. Part of the funds will also be used to complete the pending works at Malaba OSBP. The four financing agreements were…

The recovery in Kenya’s private sector activity extended into its ‘greatest extent’ in October, an industry survey showed on Wednesday as lockdown restrictions, associated with the COVID-19 pandemic eased in the month. The headline PMI rose from 56.3 in September to 59.1 in October, signaling the sharpest improvement in business conditions since the survey began in January 2014. Readings above 50.0 signal an improvement in business conditions on the previous month, while readings below 50.0 show a deterioration. Commenting on the October survey findings, Jibran Qureishi, Head of Africa Research at Stanbic Bank said, “Business confidence has been on the…