Essar Telecom Kenya was Kenya’s fourth mobile cellular network under the brand “yuMobile”, launched in December, 2008. yuMobile achieved the fastest network rollout speed in the region, by achieving countrywide coverage in approximately 10 months from launch and currently, the network had a base of over 3 million subscribers and offers best in class rates. yuMobile offers several innovative product and service offerings all targeted at making the subscribers life easier and more convenient. Visit website: www.yu.co.ke
Essar Global Fund (EGFL) through its portfolio company, Essar Telecommunications Kenya Ltd (ETKL), operated the popular yuMobile telecom servce in Kenya. EGFL, together with its partners, invested in ETKL in 2007-2008. The investment led to an upgrade in infrastructure, improved customer service offerings and brought new and innovative marketing strategies to the Kenyan mobile telecommunications market. In 2015, ETKL sold its network, IT and office infrastructure to Safaricom, while Airtel took over the 2.55 million subscriber base of yuMobile. The total deal value of the transactions was approximately US $20 million
Specialties
yuCash: a revolutionary mobile money transfer service, eneza: the first and only fully electronic top-up service, dunda: caller-ring back tone with a difference, and yuNet: affordable data packages
Safaricom closes Yu acquisition
Kenyan operator Safaricom has received final regulatory approval for its acquisition of assets from Essar Telecommunications Kenya.
The $80 million deal has been described as “the largest of its kind in the telecoms sector in Kenya”, and will transfer Essar’s passive network infrastructure and spectrum to Safaricom along with 150 staff.
Subscribers of Essar’s Kenyan unit (branded as Yu) will be transferred to Airtel Africa, as stipulated by the terms of the deal. Adding Yu’s 2.4 million subscribers to its existing 5.5 million will bolster Airtel’s position but it will still be second place in the market to Safaricom, which has 22.3 million connections.
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore stated: “I am confident that our customers in both urban and rural areas will benefit from the anticipated improvement of the quality of service on both voice and data services as we switch on more of our acquired capacity.”
