very true....if this was the West Safaricom would have a fighting chance to spoil Equity's one year trial period for good but in Kenya....such aspirations would be dealt with hushed back room conversations

Do I have to be an Ekuete account holder to have a line? Those queues (like Coop) are a nightmare..

I thought it will improve their services!

I know it will happen. The biggest question is "when will it be?"

STOCK PRICE GOING NUTS...glad i made my bulk purchase last month

This thin sim biashara will not be a walk in the park for Equity. I doubt they will make any money for the first 2 yrs. Kenyans are peculiar people and we know that price alone is not a major motivator for people to jump ship especially when it comes to telecoms. In addition, Safcom is able to counter any price reductions likely to affect its market. In short Kenyans will benefit from lower prices but it remains to be seen whether this will translate to significant profit for Equity.

Let the Games begin!

On the sidelines is the other Green, Member's traditional competitor. I wonder what cards they will play to keep their slim edge in this race.

Remember the price wars with Airtel led to a 40% drop in profit till they had to increase tariffs. Then they had mpesa to hold subscriber in place. With thin sim, they will have their subscriber numbers but a significant number will start spending less on the Safaricom sim card. it will just be on to receive calls and mpesa

They could, although I suspect it would be quite hard to get a bankers license. Plus this would be a hugely distracting move and likely counterproductive.

The most likely development I see is, Safaricom spins off M-Pesa and sticks to their core business. Then they can fight off Equity on voice and data, which they understand better than banking.

You make good points but the way you want to interpret them, it seems to me, is upside down.

1. With MVNO Equity stands to eat into every product that Safaricom offers - money transfer, data and voice.

2. Safaricom does not threaten Equity's core product - banking - and therefore can not play the kind of offensive game they did on Airtel.

3. To beat M-Pesa Equity is offering a cost of 25 shillings maximum on money transfer, compare this with 300 plus that M-pesa charges you. And you don't even have to change your Phone/M-pesa number to use the thin SIM, only the prefix.

4. For the 9M account holders the cost of most MVNO banking services, money transfer included, is ZERO. I bet with this kind of deal even you will reconsider your dormant account.

5. All this before you have even factored in the operating efficiencies and market penetration that Equity will reap from moving most of their customers to a virtual banking platform. MVNO is a game changer and Equity should make money from it from the get go.

Which ever way you look at it, Safaricom/M-Pesa has met its Waterloo.

If you don't agree, show me how they are going to respond.

Safaricom should have applied for a banking license the day they pissed Mwangi off.