This archive report was first published on 24 October 2019.
Published on October 24, 2019, a clever move by Safaricom has left many Kenyans celebrating a win they never had.
But have we been fooled again? The answer lies in Kenya's history, where bread manufacturers in the mid-to-late 2000s faced a similar dilemma.
Back then, bread manufacturers wanted to increase the price of a standard loaf by 5 shillings from Ksh 35 to Ksh 40. However, they faced a threat from consumers who vowed to boycott bread and revert to cassavas and yams if they dared increase the price.
Instead of increasing the price, the manufacturers quietly decided to slash the net weight of the standard loaf from 500 grams to 400 grams. Consumers were fooled, and they ended up paying the equivalent of Ksh 44 for a 500g loaf of bread.
A similar strategy was adopted by Coca-Cola a few years later. They abandoned plans to increase the price of their Minute Maid juices and simply scaled down the packaging to 400ml.
Fast forward to today, Safaricom has successfully fooled Kenyans who are busy celebrating an imagined win. The company has scrapped data bundle expiry but made the data expensive, a tactic reminiscent of the bread manufacturers.
For instance, where Ksh 99 used to buy you 1GB of Daily Data, it's only good enough for 495MBs under the new plan. A terrible deal that means you'll now potentially spend over DOUBLE on their data to enjoy it with no time limit.
