Who Said It Could Not Be Done?

It is done PERIOD

The long march is over, http://www.etopup.co.ke/ has done it.

I know you are lost, and so was I for over a year, so welcome back and thanks for the reads.
So what is it am yapping about? Here is the deal, look at these market share statistics of a Company in the Kenyan mobile market:
  1. Subscriber Base: 64.5% (19 Million out of 29.8 M), next chap in line at 16.5%.
  2. Voice Traffic: 77.5%, next chap at 12.5%.
  3. SMS Traffic: 93.7%, next chap 4.5%.
  4. Mobile data: 74.4%, next chap 11.2%.
  5. Mobile Money Subscribers: 96% next chap 3% (total subscription, 19.5 M)
  6. Mobile Money Agents Outlets: 93%, next chap 3% (total agents outlets, 74 K)


Item 5-6, source: personal market assessment of the percentages, CCK-Kenyans communications regulator does not give these, yet.

Who wants to throw the first stone?


Now, and I mean now, all of us to the last person would love to be the owner of such statistics, wouldn't we?

And who do they belong to, off course Safaricom Limited, the premier Kenyan mobile network operator.
So, what is the net effect of such a grip on such a vital facilitator of any countries trade?

One, the owner, me or you, inclusive and without any exceptions, becomes a bully.

Two, your grip, as tight as it is, makes you a killer of innovation, and it’s obvious, why let other drink from the well, when the well is practically yours.

Three, and this is one of the biggest un-lamented problem, independent VAS operators perish, after all you own all the subscribers and means of reaching them and so can afford to enforce usurious revenue share regimes.

Four, when we reach up there, we all to a person, mistreat, banish, or put down the people who helped us get up, it’s a rule of life, it must be somewhere in the little book-The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.
Case in point, to a good extend, Safaricom was build into the giant it is today by the hard sweat of its airtime dealer. This was in the 1999-2008 period.

Then my pet project, Mpesa happened, and it cut off the legs of the dealers as far as airtime dealership goes.
Currently Mpesa Buy airtime menu in 100% of Safaricom users phones enables Safaricom to deliver 72% of its daily airtime top up sales, keeping the dealers margin of 8% (did I mention greed somewhere up there, ok, I do know, when you have that grip, yes, that is what you become, greedy!).

The 8% picked off the distributor’s pockets does not in any way end up in the customers’ pockets, no way, and this is despite not incurring printing cost, storage, pilferage, security, etcetera, say another 8% more savings in airtime distribution cost.

Safaricom swallows this 16% -whap! (You know the sucking sound made with your lips shaped roundish, that sound, is the sound), the dealers perish one by one and the customers suffer the highest calling rates in the country.

Vertical integration is good, healthy and desirable, but how is the customer benefiting?

And the dealers?

They cannot be tolerated to think, say or suggest “Safaricom can I have the same facilities your Mpesa department uses-customers don’t pay a transaction fee to buy airtime through Mpesa Department buy airtime function and also Mpesa department gets its share of the sale without paying for the airtime before hand as we do, we have to buy it cash, in hard Kenyan currency so that we can sell it on your behalf”. That thought is tantamount to mutiny and treated worse than leprosy.

Reconstruction of the market place begins.

But now, the first shot has been fired.

EtopUp, enable the use of the ubiquitous Safaricom e-money offering, Mpesa, to order and pay for airtime top up for any mobile network subscriber in Kenya.

Yes, other payments methods are also available, visa and PayPal, etcetera, so that our brothers in the diasporas can also top up their loved ones phones back in Kenya.

So what is so wonderful about this?

The other networks because of economies of scale had very tiny airtime distribution networks, further more small shop owners don’t even want to stock their airtime. But with the eTopUp the game has just changed.

Try it, go to http://www.etopup.co.ke/ , enter a mobile number, say Safaricom 0722446858, put an amount, say 1000, accept terms and conditions, confirm, and you will find yourself in a new world, the payment options are stupendous! And the latency between payment and order fulfillment is 26 seconds; I timed it, now that’s faster than even the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s The Garden of Live Flowers could move, and she was fast!

Kenyans could not take advantage of the much much cheaper calling rates offered by the other three Kenyan mobile network operators, but now they can, all they need is a phone with dual sim cards capability and by the look of things all Chinese phones in the Kenyan market seem to be dual phones.

And so what can we expect to see?

  1. Safaricom losing grip on voice, SMS, MMS, and mobile data to the other mobile operators.
  2. Safaricom taking over the mobile money payment space (at least for a little while longer).
  3. And for Safaricom to archive number two above, realizing that Mpesa e-money is a commodity, sold among other commodities, and thus should be sold by All who wish to sell it and so should cut out the red tape of “managers approving Mpesa agency locations” in the guise of protecting the other existing Mpesa players in the location - that stage is long past!
  4. Be sure in the next two years, 90% of Kenyans will be within 400 meters of an Mpesa e-money selling shop.
  5. Visit http://www.obuntu.co.ke/, if you need an electronic voucher distribution platform on business friendly terms to enable you penetrate and take any prepaid voucher business environment.


By the way how long do you think it will take to have a similar e-top up solution in the Kenyan market?

When you look at http://www.etopup.co.ke/ what other business do you see around it.

Drop me your views on the two questions.


Thanks and copy with pride.

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