"The event gives excellent opportunity to share talents and discover new products emerging in the market" (MA, Safaricom Ltd)

Exciting and Encouraging Prospects in East African Telecoms Markets at the Close of the Annual East Africa Com Conference and Exhibition

East Africa Com
1 April 2009
Nairobi, Kenya

East Africa Com 2009 closed last Thursday 2nd April in Nairobi, after two
days of inspiring presentations and discussions from the region’s leading
service providers.  Delegates left the conference feeling inspired and
educated, as East African industry leaders confirmed that there is room for
further growth in the region, as well as exciting prospects for new mobile
banking services, converged service offerings, high speed broadband access,
and much more…

2009 saw the return of East Africa Com to Nairobi, Kenya, after a 2008 event
in Tanzania, and this come back to the most dynamic market in the East
African telecoms industry saw the biggest and best event yet!  Over 730
attendees visited the packed exhibition, and the conference hall was filled
with expectant delegates as senior-level representatives from Zain East
Africa, the Communications Commission of Kenya, Orange Telkom Kenya, Zantel
and Safaricom took to the stage.

Zain East Africa’s Raed Haddadin, Chief Commercial Officer, gave a very
thorough and insightful presentation detailing Zain’s successes in the region
to date, as well as their future strategies.  A lot of Mr Haddadin’s
discussion about service innovations was focused on Zain’s mobile money
offering, Zap, and unsurprisingly the majority of questions from the audience
also centred on this service.  Zap will be attempting to erode Safaricom’s
massive customer following for Mpesa, their money transfer service, in Kenya
and neighbouring markets.  Despite this great obstacle, Mr Haddadin seemed
confident that Zap would gain headway, emphasising that Zain’s would be a
more complete offering, more akin to a Mobile Banking service than just money
transfer.  Challenges that Mr Haddadin outlined would be the necessary
partnerships with banking institutions and the regulatory obstacles across
each country – since Zain will aim to implement the service across their
large footprint, as they would with any service.

On the second day the conference went into more depth about both network
optimisation and innovative services in the dedicated streams.  There was a
focus on realistic objectives and openness across the board in these
discussions.  Motorola’s Mr Mark Holdsworth emphasised the need for operators
and solutions providers alike to focus on service quality management in a way
that focused on customer experience when using an operator’s network;
similarly Mr Deng Malok of Bilpam Sudan focused on how service providers need
to focus on the end-user to ensure customer-appropriate strategies.  Earlier
in the day Mr Noel Herrity, CEO of Zantel, Tanzania had made the point very
clear – customer, customer, customer, think of the customer as your best
friend.

Going forward into 2010 and beyond the focus will increasingly be on the
customer; appropriate services, improved access, and how to increase loyalty
are just a few of the themes.  Do not miss East Africa Com 2010 which, thanks
to increasing demand on exhibition spaces and a record breaking attendance
will be upgrading to the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in the
centre of Nairobi!

Part of the renowned Com World Series,  East Africa Com is the only annual
communications event dedicated to the region’s telecommunications ecosystem,
providing a meeting place for operators, regulators, investors and vendors
from across the East African markets to debate the future of
telecommunications in their region, and to network with colleagues and
international telecom experts.  In 200, over 700 participants, 30 speakers
and 40 exhibitors attended, representing the whole communications value
chain, from GSM and CDMA operators, ISPs, regulators and government bodies,
telecommunications solutions vendors, investors, analysts and more.