Why I Won’t Swap My Ethio Telecom SIM for Safaricom Ethiopia

By Addis Assefa

I remember talking to a taxi driver in Nairobi a few months before Safaricom Plc started operations in Ethiopia. He was telling me how Safaricom drastically changed Kenya’s telecom landscape and how he has no doubt they’ll do the same in Ethiopia. I hoped they would as well, although I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant in our case. Ethio Telecom was doing impressively well. Relatively speaking, they have improved astronomically compared to the period when they were the sole service providers, and I couldn’t think of any viable reason why I would consider switching to Safaricom.

Then they hit in and got a staggering million subscribers in a month, I being one of them. Granted, this is a numbers game, but I can’t even begin to fathom the other “numbers” they should be concerned about. The frenzy had me thinking this was just a passing fad. Let’s be honest, most of us didn’t even bother to explore their offerings beyond the initial SIM purchase.

Last week, I got another SIM card because the sales agent on the side of the road was so energetic and persistent, I had to say yes for him to inch toward his target, and I got M-PESA too! Well, the sales agent registered me on M-PESA and told me my password (he activated the SIM by inserting it into his phone because he suspected I wouldn’t use it actively).

Safaricom Ethiopia’s struggle and the difficulty we are facing as a nation to float the other tender for another telecom provider got me thinking about why I didn’t use Safaricom Ethiopia’s services. My reflections boldened me to propose some distant suggestions.

Understand the market

This is not Kenya. Ethio telecom is not Telkom Kenya. Maybe if Safaricom had prepared the way Ethio Telecom did, things would have been different. Your WhatsApp bundles that worked magically in Kenya do not mean anything here unless you are doing marketing for Meta! Telegram, anyone? Speak to the Ethiopian market, and no, not just in your promotions, which are nice but not very effective, are they? Seriously, consider below-the-line marketing.

Go cheap

I hate how this sounds; let’s rephrase. Reconsider your pricing. Maybe as an entry strategy, I don’t know. Look at your stiff-necked, “We are not going to have unlimited data options for at least a few years” stance got you. I can get Ethio Telecom’s reasonably good unlimited data options for 7600 birr for two years! It doesn’t matter how super fast your connection is, but I, and many cost-sensitive users, are not willing to spend a lot more than what we spend with Ethio Telecom on your 100GB per month bundles.

Why would anyone choose Safaricom Ethiopia?

Forgive my blunt insinuation, but answer for yourself (hopefully convincingly) why should anyone pick Safaricom Ethiopia as their primary telecom service provider? A rather childish question that warrants a direct, unsophisticated answer. With Ethio Telecom boasting over 76 million subscribers, let’s forget the notion of “reaching the unreached.” For Safaricom Ethiopia to survive, you need to have a convincing reason for people to switch or at least use your services in tandem with Ethio Telecom’s.

Innovate, please!

This one is the most important. Come up with a mind-boggling, innovative idea that forces us to use your services. Collaborate. No offense to anyone, but you should have been the one to introduce Teletv-like platforms. Find ways to make it a necessity, not just an option.

_____