Airtel selling off its assets, cutting down staff, making losses and Rumours of exiting the Kenyan market.
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They're unable to sustain their employees while still providing Equity with the infrastructure[/quote]

Equity should buy the infrastructure and roll out equitel 'mpesa ' in a big way!!!!!!

MTN should make another stab at the Kenyan market

..the management has ONE tool and one tool only in their arsenal. Cost Reduction. Not cost management or cost control. They attack every business problem with this. A terrible way to strategise as operations will go wrong if you don't get inventive. And when in a hole, they double down.
Imagine your child gets ill, the doc says its malnutrition cause you have had him on a kale only diet; hence you need to supplement his diet with meat, milk and some beans...and you go...No!too costly! Need to reduce the kales to one meal a day!
It is like that with Airtel. A good case of the king is naked when it comes to their management and this cost thing. Even a monkey can see it.
A company with 6+ million subs ought to make some money...Saf has what, 23+ million? Thats four times, so being very generous, they should be able to haul in a tenth of what Saf makes surely? 3 billion is not a bad payday. Instead, Safaricom has them beat by the 15th second of each business day.
Mind boggling.

easy said, they seem to be doing well in their other markets, so I am sure they know one or two things about the industry as compared to say 'monkeys'
I don't know if you have ever tried selling stuff to kenyans, we at times can be peculiar beings, there is this electrical shop huko down town, and despite there being many other shops around it people still prefer to go make a queue hapo disregarding the others, despite all the shops sourcing their stuff from similar suppliers.

another example is with pubs/nyama joints you might find guys struggling to get parking at an establishment while next door the other guys are near empty.

sometimes it just happens, not due to brilliance or skills, people just flock to some and ignore others.

..its hyperbole chief. That said, my point remains valid. The 6+ million subscribers on their roster are very real customers...and yes, the Kenyan market is unique, challenging even but not insurmountable. Zuku guys are roughly in the same domain with fewer customers and a smaller war chest and yet they seem to eke revenue and subsistence still. The kenyan market is different from other countries, much like how we have superb internet infrastructure, our Human development more developed compared to the rest of most of Africa; As such, they should retweaked their business model to adapt to Kenya and not try to shoehorn Kenya into fitting their idea of what an African market is like. Kenyans are smart and price sensitive too. They will pick a solution that makes economic sense to them. The brand loyalty to Safaricom is not totally blind, which is why Equity got some traction with Equitel despite running on a hosted network.
Finally, I have a more than common insight in the Kenya telecomms space.

With these sort of numbers I would imagine calling rates are dirt cheap?
Whats the situation like in Nigeria?

sawa mimi sina insight huko, I am just a keyboard/google fed analyst but is comparing zuku biashara to that of a mobile operator taking it a little bit too far especially when looking at revenues, my keyboard ninja in me tells me zuku is more specific, they target a controlled market segment unlike airtel who have to cater to non existent customers. plus if you go into a market you have your projections and if you fail to get the same you exit, ama telcom space huenda aje

have always thought that infrastructure thing messes them kabisa, its very poor to say the least especially when one moves from the urban centers, also the constant change of owners has not done that network any favors