Kenya Telcom Giant, Safaricom, Launches in Ethiopia
Safaricom, One of Kenya’s leading telecommunications outfits, has launched its services in East Africa, Ethiopia, with activity in selected locations.
The telcom had obtained a licence to operate in the profitable Ethiopia market as of July 2021.
A year after obtaining the licence, it was revealed that Safaricom would begin to roll out operations by August 2022. This meant that against the previous schedule to begin operations earlier and it was now four months behind the agenda. There were also previous revelations that the launch would be gradual with a set of wide coverage for 2023.
According to reports, amongst the first regions that Safaricom in Ethiopia will be operating in is Dire Dawa.
Now, in a recent statement released by the telecom has confirmed its operations in the East African Nation. Safaricom launched a large-scale customer pilot of its services in Dire Dawa. Its present actions have been revealed previously as part of the gradual process of its network launch. this will equip the network provider for a national launch.
As a result of the development, residents of Dire Dawa will be able to access the Safaricom 2,3 and 4G coverage. Likewise, customers can also buy the mobile network’s SIM cards and pick a number of other choices that begins with the 07 prefixes.
SIM cards are now available in shops and they include Voice, SMS, and Data offers. These offers are given to let customers test the mobile network coverage and strength in the area.
Safaricom has come out to reveal that it had already set up three shops in the Ethiopian city, and it is open to all customers for SIM registration, Purchase and customer care activities.
Further development plans in the country will be the provision of its network services in about twenty-five cities in the country by the month of April 2023
According to Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia, he said, ” We are excited to begin our customer pilot for Safaricom Ethiopia’s network and services in Dire Dawa. This is an important milestone as we begin opening the network to customers in order to test the end-to-end readiness of technical and commercial operations ahead of the full network launch. We thank the Government of Ethiopia, the Dire Dawa City Administration, the Ethiopian Communications Authority, community leaders, network, IT and distribution partners and all stakeholders for all their support towards realizing this and future milestones.”
He further stated “We will continue to share updates, as we extend the network and customer pilot across other regions, towards our National Launch in October 2022,” said Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia”.