About a year ago, Helios Investment Partners acquired 60-percent stake in Telkom Kenya and the Kenyan government increased its stake from 30-percent to 40-percent as Orange bid goodbye to the Kenyan market.
Telkom Kenya was to hold on to the “Orange Kenya” branding for a maximum of 18 months, before they could rebrand and time has ran out for the company and today they unveiled their new identity.
Telkom Kenya’s CEO, Aldo Mareuse, acknowledged that the company had not reached its potential and was lagging behind its peers. He says that they have transformed the company from inside out including changing their company culture, new hires, network expansion, launch of customer-centric products and innovation.
Orange Kenya is now Telkom Kenya
The major announcement today was the rebrand from Orange Kenya to Telkom Kenya. This is not shocking, as it would be to the benefit of the company to go with a familiar brand as opposed to a new brand name. The rebrand brings with it sort-of new corporate colors, a new logo and a new tagline, “Moving with you”. The company aims to deliver “a new, differentiated entity in the minds of our clients, partners, employees and other stakeholders.”
4G Network
The rebrand comes bearing gifts and among the gifts is 4G network connectivity. Telkom Kenya announced that they are launching 4G across 9 towns in Kenya, which are; Embu, Meru, Kisumu, Kakamega, Nakuru, Eldoret, Nairobi, Mombasa and Nyeri. The company revealed that it has invested 5 billion Kenyan shillings in this network and infrastructure upgrade and they have increased their sites by over 50-percent to reach 1600 sites.
Even better news, to celebrate the launch of 4G, Telkom Kenya is offering its customers 1GB of data everyday, valid for 24 hours to enjoy the 4G network. The telco is also offering WhatsApp for free alongside their Holla bundle offer that allows subscribers to make calls for as low as 1.80 per minute to other networks, free Telkom-Telkom calls and free SMS across all networks.
Mobile Money
At the moment, Telkom Kenya has no mobile money offering but that is set to change in a month’s time. The company is said to be reviewing their mobile money offering and revamping it into a “new and truly exciting as well as improved platform.”
The new platform is said to be targeting the tech savvy generation. We also have exclusive information that the company could be targeting enterprises with their new mobile money platform.
These are major announcements done by Telkom Kenya today and all eyes are on the company to see how they will fair from now on.
Story Timeline
Orange Telkom Kenya settling Debts ahead of eventual Exit of Market
Orange Formally Exits Kenya Market with Majority Stake Sale to Helios
Helios Aggressive Mobile Money Strategy on Orange Kenya Takeover
Telkom Kenya Unveils Management Team Focusing on Four Divisions
Kris Senanu to head Telkom Kenya Enterprise Division
Telkom Kenya Appoints Former Safaricom Exec as Chief Finance Officer
Telkom Kenya Appoints More Former Safaricom Executives