Will Zain be the better option in Kenya?

It is now over one week since Celtel rebranded to Zain with the new brand and tagline being "a wonderful world." Zain was picked from over 400 suggested names, meaning ‘beautiful, good and wonderful' and has many positive meanings in other cultures in Africa, Asia and Europe.

In Nairobi, all corners are literally flooded with Zain billboards, posters and signs. Haile Selasie roundabout for example, located on Nairobi's busiest highways has four Zain billboards. In Kenya, marketers scrabble for spots on billboards located especially on highways because of the huge traffic. Outdoor advertising in Nairobi is a favourite option because of the cost compared to advertising in the electronic and print media.

Safaricom, has openly admitted that its market share is likely to start declining because of increased competition. Two more mobile telephone companies are expected to enter the Kenyan market before the last quarter of 2008. The entry of Telkom Kenya, 51% owned by France Telecom and Econet Kenya partially owned by Indian Essar will see cut throat competition in the mobile telephone industry. According to a recently released research report, Safaricom is expected to retain a huge chunk of the market share.

Kencell, Celtel now Zain

When it comes to brand familiarity, Safaricom scores highly. Safaricom has always been Safaricom from the beginning and hopefully to the end. Kenyans know the brand, its corporate colour (green) and tagline, "the better option." Since it was acquired by Vodacom in 2000, the company has grown its subscription base to 10 million. It's after tax profit for the financial year ending March 31, 2008 was 13.9 billion, the highest in the Eastern African region.

Zain has to vigorously ensure its presence is felt in the Kenyan market. The changing of names from Kencell to Celtel now to Zain is confusing to the consumers. Kencell was pink, Celtel was a deep red and now Zain is black and a light shade of green. Kencell to us "Yes!", Celtel was "making life better" and now Zain is promising "a wonderful world."

When asked how Zain plans to deal with the competition (Safaricom) in Kenya, Rene Maza the recently appointed Zain Kenya managing director said the company will focus on providing good network coverage, offer competitive calling tariffs, better service and invest in new technologies. “We will focus all our efforts on those pillars to ensure we give our customers in Kenya an excellent product,” he said.

A move that might boost its subscriber numbers is the introduction of the Zain One Network service between Africa and the Middle East. The service will be available to 500 million people from the west coast of Africa, to the Middle East.

One thing Kenyan subscribers are looking forward to, is the reduction in the cost of calling especially as the cost of living continues to sky rocket. A few months ago, Safaricom held a promotion whereby subscribers would load their numbers with KSh100 and call free of charge at certain hours. One the first day the system was jammed affecting even people who had not subscribed to the free calls service. The company had to move the free call hours to later in the evening to decongest the system. Fraudsters have taken advantage of the free offers and subscribers are now receiving anonymous text messages asking them to forward some amount of money to a number and talk for free for a certain number of days.

Tariffs will be a big factor in the Kenyan mobile operator market and strategies are likely to change as competitors are likely to "sleep with the enemy" across networks trying to reduce costs.