A new round of telecom price wars appears to be underway and Ugandan analysts are confident that the new battle will continue to assist and help customers benefit from the price cuts.
“What we are seeing with Warid and others are efforts to undercut the market and this is going to mean users will get reduced rates and will be able to talk more so it looks like it will be benefiting the people again at the behest of companies’ profits,” says Robert Umbabo, a Kampala-based telecom analyst.
This comes after Warid Telecom, who cut its rates on voice calls from Shs 8 to Shs 5 and to finally Shs 3 per second, further reduced voice call rates within the network to Shs 1 per second, forcing other operators to follow suit.
The company announced earlier this month another offer that will see mobile customers receive three times the value of airtime they load. For example, if a mobile user loads airtime worth Shs 5,000 and above, they will get a 200% bonus. The bonus airtime can be used to make voice calls and send sms messages.
A Shs 5,000 scratch card gives one bonus airtime of Ush.10, 000 which in essence means one will have total airtime of Shs 15,000 instantly and the same applies to the other denominations above Shs 5,000. Bharti Airtel has also announced another customer-oriented service that allows a user to purchase a SIM pack containing two SIM cards with consecutive numbers.
Airtel’s Uganda Managing Director V.G Somasekhar says the sim card has been fitted with a technology that enables a customer to access the Internet, besides being WAP enabled or not.
Uganda Telecom (UTL) has reloaded their Endobo product – which allows mobile users to use only Shs 500 to make unlimited daily calls on their network.
