Telkom Kenya drops Orange tag and rebrands to Telkom Kenya
Early last year Helios Investment Partners was given the green light to purchase majority shares in Telkcom Kenya. After the purchase went through, Telkcom Kenya started prioritizing the use of Telkcom Kenya in press releases and other public communications, but the name change had not been made official as part of the deal allowed Telkcom Kenya to continue using the Orange brand for a further 18 months. The name Orange also still featured in Orange shops, merchandise, credit cards, and even on the network. Starting today however, the Orange name will be wiped out from Telkom Kenya operations and the new brand name will be Telkom Kenya.
The rebranding comes at a time when the third largest mobile operator is positioning itself to become a key player in the industry, aiming to dislodge Airtel from the second position. Already Telkom Kenya has started deploying 4G networks in Nairobi, and at the same time introducing new data offering to lure customers to its Internet services.
Speaking a day before the launch, Telkom Kenya’s chief technology officer John Bororot said that the company was looking at a new era where Telkom Kenya will no longer be looked at as a sleeping giant, promising that the market should expect to witness a new entity.
The rebranding now gives Helios Investments Partners complete control of the operations of Telkom Kenya, as the French mobile operator Orange packs and leaves the company. Helios Investments Partners now has 60% stake in Telkom Kenya although it bought all the 70% stake from Orange. The 10% difference was ceded to the government to make the government grow its shareholding from the previous 30% in Orange to 40% in Telkom Kenya.
Telkom Kenya has promised to shake the mobile sector with new customer friendly products, although this would be an uphill task given the financial muscle Safaricom has. In addition, most customers do not care how good a product is if two of the core teleco services: network strength and customer care, are not of the best qualities. Since Safaricom bought Yu infrastructure, the leading mobile provider has been working tirelessly to ensure that it offers the best quality voice and data services across the country, and given the amount of resources to match what Safaricom has done.
