Actually, you may be insignificant.

I didn't want to comment on this thread until an equity staff told me something that scared me yeterday. He said, Dr.JM had once told a group of senior mgrs that the only company left for him to conquer was safaricom.

I hope it was a lie, I hope he was exaggerating. If not, then Lee Kun Hee, Samsung's president in 1997 comes to mind. Lee had a larger than life personality within Samsung. He had transformed Samsung and brought it huge success. His senior managers could not dare to express their reservations on wrong decisions made by Lee. So 1997, Lee started Samsung motors which folded a year later having lost $15bn of shareholders money.

The parallels with JM's entry into mobile telephony are too eerie to ignore.

When Jack Ma, Alibaba founder, was faced with eBay's entry into China, he told his staff;
"We are a crocodile in the Yangtze river and eBay is a shark in the ocean. We take the war to the ocean we die, we bring the war to the river we win"

He kept the war in his territory and his net worth now stands at $25bn after the IPO yesterday.

But Dr.JM has decided to get into the ocean and fight with a brutal and ruthless shark. It can only end one way.

Studies have proven that people are less likely to make optimal decisions after long periods of success.

I would wish to re-visit this thread after 3 years. I hope the fight between the crocodile and the shark will last that long.

I bet air patel are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of someone else throwing shit loads of money into an expensive fight that is the fight against safaricon. This will be protracted and i will take a break from the EB stock and watch from the safaricom corner.

notice EB has had little success outside its core space in Kenya.

It is the technology that will be an angry devil, hard to tame, there will be only very few chances and no major failures can be experienced. The first mover always has the advantage of tolerance of the customers, the second entrant comes in to find a bar already set. Apple Maps and Google Maps anyone?
Kenyans trusting JM or not does not carry much currency;Equity has to invest heavily, master and tame telecomms ecosystems/technology and fight Mpesa at the same time. Or hope their partners have the necessary tech depth of the same...and this being Airtel, my optimism is dampened badly.

Oh ye of little faith, just wait and you'll see.

If there is one thing Equity and Dr. JM have never lacked, it's haters, prophets of doom, arm chair critics etc. And they all end up eating their words - though they rarely ever acknowledge the fact.

Dr. JM and Equity took on AN INDUSTRY and won against all odds. People challenged their business model timeline to collapse for daring to lend to the unbankable!! We know how that story went!

Dr. JM is the face of Equity. There is an engine room full of smart fellows you don't get to see on TV. Folks at Equity know exactly what they are doing. Trust me! There is no try and error here!