SAFARICOM TO MOVE HEADQUARTERS TO GARDEN CITY

Listed Telco Safaricom will move its headquarters to newly-inaugurated Garden City Mall in the next two years, sources indicate.

The new headquarters will be located in the second phase of the Garden City project which has now acquired 15 more acres from EABL for the purpose.

Safaricom is set to build a 5-acre campus on this land where it will move its HQs and business units.

Campus is a popular term for tech company headquarters in Silicon Valley, California including the Apple Campus in Cupertino, California, Google Campus, Santa Clara, Oracle in Redwood and so on.

Detailed designs of the project are yet to surface but given Safaricom's strong Free Cash Flow position and the fact that it is only this year it expects to take a Sh5billion hit for the cost of rolling out the National Police Network, it will certainly be in position to finance this project.

Apple Campus entrance in Cupertino, California

Facebook HQ entrance

Google Campus entrance

Google Campus

NOW STARTIMES HIKES PRICES ON SHILLING DEVALUATION

Startimes Group has now increased its subscription rates after its acquisition of the rights to the German Bundesliga was affected by the weakening of the Shilling forcing them to raise prices to cover their costs.

The price increase has been communicated as a charge for Sports add ons.

All key international sports have been removed from the normal bouquets and will only be available for additional cost.

Their premium sports offering dubbed Sports Plus will now cost an extra Sh600 per month on all their bouquets.

Sources indicate the new charges will be tabulated as follows:

See below the  tabulated with increase percentages

Existing bouquets	Cost	New Sports add on	Total Cost to sub	Increase	Add on package
Startimes Unique	1,499	600	2,099	29%	Sports Plus
Startimes Classic	999	600	1,599	38%	Sports Plus
Startimes Basic	499	200	699	29%	Sports Play
Starsat Smart	899	600	1,499	40%	Sports Plus
Starsat Super	1,799	N/A	1,799		N/A has all sports channels

The increase comes after pay TV DStv recently announced an increase in its bouquet prices citing currency volatility.

HAS SAFARICOM IDENTIFIED BOB COLLYMORE'S SUCCESSOR?

Unconfirmed rumours indicate that Vodafone may have identified the person it wants to succeed Bob Collymore as the next CEO of Safaricom when the incumbent's contract runs out in 2017.

These are still as yet highly speculative rumours but the personality in question is said to be involved in Vodafone Middle East operations.

It is hard to pin down an individual but Nairobitech will seek to get more information over the coming days but it is instructive that Serpil Timuray, the lady who heads the Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific region of Vodafone as CEO also sits on Safaricom's board.

Anyone coming from the Middle East operations is likely to be someone who has been reporting to her.

Former CEO Michael Joseph who also sits on the board is said to be the other influential voice in the room.

We will keep tabs on the issue in the coming days.

DStv PRICES TO COME DOWN IF SHILLING RECOVERS - CEO, MULTICHOICE

Multichoice Africa CEO Tim Jacobs

DStv prices will come down once the Kenya Shilling recovers the ground it has lost against the US dollar, Multichoice Africa CEO Tim Jacobs has said.

Multichoice this week announced new prices for its DStv bouquets with the top end premium subscription now priced at Sh9,400 up from Sh8,200.

Jacobs, who is in charge of Multichoice business outside of South Africa said the company had held off raising prices hoping the Shilling would stabilize but the national currency's continued slide forced the review.

"The currency started depreciating way before we increased our prices," Jacobs said, "We held off for sometime waiting to see if the currency would stabilize (but) there comes a point where currency devaluation (can no longer be absorbed)."

The Shilling yesterday hit a new three year low of Sh104.75 against the dollar with many analysts bracing themselves for it to breach the pyschological Sh105 mark.

It has now plunged 14% this year against the US Dollar and other hard currencies.

While the Dollar is itself down against the major world currencies, it has surged against African currencies owing to their negative trade balances (they import more than they export).

For instance in Kenya, importation of capital goods associated with the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway has widened the trade deficit and consequently current account deficit.

This has seen many commodities that are purchased in Dollars soar in prices.

A Toyota Premio that cost Sh1.3million in December to import is now going for Sh1.6 million or more owing to the strong Dollar.

Vehicle importers are now asking customers to hold off until the Shilling returns to familiar levels before importing a vehicle.

Local companies with significant Dollar spend have also faced adverse effects of the weak Shilling.

Kenya Airways when it reported the biggest corporate loss in Kenya cited huge interest payments and foreign exchange losses on dollar denominated of Sh4.7billion.

Athi River Mining, which also has some Dollar denominated debt, in its half-year results, reported Sh1.4bn in unrealized foreign exchange losses.

"The sharp depreciation of both the Kenyan and Tanzanian currencies, has resulted in unrealized forex losses on our dollar denominated borrowings," adding that, "it could be reversed if the currencies strengthen or against future dollar earnings."

The Kenya government is itself paying a lot more on the Eurobond it floated sometime back as the Shilling continues to weaken.

Jacobs said Multichoice has faced the same issue as it pays most of its content including movies and local football leagues in Dollars.

Consequently, all countries with a free float currency in Africa have seen a review of bouquet prices.

Nigeria which has pegged its Naira to trade at a fixed N199 to the Dollar for example has not been affected.

MPESA EQUITEL WAR: SAFARICOM TO CHARGE FOR BANK TO MPESA SERVICES

Listed-telco Safaricom has issued notice of new charges to be imposed on bank to MPESA transactions.

In a statement  Safaricom said that Bank to Third-Party MPESA wallets will now incur charges similar to those it charges for person to person money transfer on MPESA.

Interestingly, this notice has been issued after rival Equitel informed customers that Safaricom had imposed new charges for transferring money from its service to MPESA.

However, insiders say the charges apply to all banks and are to come into effect later this year. Safaricom apparently discovered that Banks have been offering to transfer money from one bank account to another person's MPESA line other than the owner of the bank account and charging for it yet Safaricom has not been charging for this service.

"They are using our infrastructure," one source said.

This now means if you go to the Bank and ask them to transfer some money from your account to your supplier's  MPESA account, it will be charged the rate for sending that amount of money.

In principle, since banks are unlikely to bear these charges, it means customers will have to pay for this service over and above what banks have been charging and retaining.

What is not clear from the statement is whether bank's will be revenue sharing partners in this or will simply pay Safaricom for using its infrastructure.

Although the service has been existing, Safaricom now says this is a new service for which it has sought and received approvals from the Central Bank of Kenya.

In other words, banks have led Safaricom to discover another use for its MPESA infrastructure.

Banks will be expected to issue their positions on the matter in the coming days.

It will also put an interesting spin on whether Equitel can be classified as a bank to MPESA transaction.

Banks plan to launch their own switch allowing mobile money transfer from one bank to another in November.

*This blog post has been updated. It has been amended to correct the inaccurate assertion that these new charges apply to a customer sending money from his bank account to HIS Mpesa account. The new charges apply to sending money from his bank account to SOMEBODY ELSE's bank account.

The chart below issued by Equitel shows prevailing tariffs in the market.

DStv COUSIN SHOWMAX TO HEAD OFF NETFLIX'S ENTRY

Content giant Naspers, which owns Multichoice, has launched a video on demand (VoD) service that is seen as a first strike against the impending arrival of streaming giant, Netflix.

ShowMax to be ran separately from Multichoice, will allow unlimited online streaming of movies and videos for a flat monthly fee.

The service has first been launched in South Africa but given that rival Netflix has continental ambitions, it is expected that ShowMax will ride on Multichoice's vast network on the continent to rapidly roll out.

For Kenya this could be interesting as Safaricom already has a similar service that has yet to gain traction and is said to be looking to improve on its BigBox with a second upgraded version of the same said to be under construction.

However, Safaricom is not quite interested in content as it is in uptake of its LTE service and suggestions have been made that products like ShowMax could partner with Safaricom as they can provide the content while the telco provides the infrastructure for streaming.

Currently, a visit to Showmax.com gives this notice: Sorry, ShowMax is not available in your country yet. Enter your email and we'll let you know as soon as ShowMax is available.

This suggests the rollout is imminent. ShowMax claims to have over 10,000 hours of content implying streaming 24/7 would keep you glued to your laptop or phone until November 2016.

It is not known if Zuku will be introducing such a service but Jamii Telecom (JTL) has always toyed with IPTV and streaming-like services which it has yet to bring to market.

TIGO TO COME TO KENYA? AIRTEL TO SELL FOUR AFRICAN UNITS

The sun is rapidly setting on Sunil Bharti's pan-African adventure with reports that his Airtel Group is selling four more African units to operator Tigo.

These include Uganda, Niger and Gabon as Bharti Airtel looks to cut its losses on the African continent.

Speculation is now rife that Tigo could also end up taking over the Kenyan unit with pundits predicting a total Airtel exit by February next year.

Tigo is growing rapidly in the African markets it operates in and is present in Tanzania, Rwanda, Chad, Ghana, Congo DRC and Senegal.

The current MD of Airtel Kenya Adel Youseffi was previously heading the Tigo Ghana operation.

Tigo is a brand name of Millicom International, an outfit that was started in Raleigh, North Carolina in the US and went on to have stunning successes after successes.

For instance, when it was offered a mobile license in partnership with Racal Communications in Britain, it launched its Voice And Data Phone (Vodafone) which is the global behemoth we know today.

It then created China Telecom in that country and that is now the world's largest mobile operator.

It later started another rival network to Vodafone in the UK which it called Orange. This was bought out by Vodafone itself and later sold to France Telecom and is the global behemoth we know today as Orange.

It remains to be seen if it will make a play for the Kenyan Airtel unit.