sneezer
is this confirmed or its just someone hypothesizing on such an idea

its a very good idea. They already have the customers those with MPESA accounts and they are a good number their daily transactions can't be compared to most of the banks.

Whoops! @Sasha @selah, missed your edicts by 24hrs, but wisdom does not grow old.

Safaricom buying a bank is messy. They already make non-funded income from MPESA, so the issue would be interest income. Surely, this could be worked out in the agreement with the fund holding Banks without all the nastiness of being a bank.


And Google's core business is ever so SEARCH (90% of revenue) just as Safaricom's core business remains so VOICE/SMS (77% of revenue).

And remember, all diversity is initially leveraged on core business, hence share of net profit should be more skewed towards core business as this would discount VAS/ACQUISITION/DATA net-profits, which we can expect to be almost non-existent.

@mayay what forcus??you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

The whole thing if managed properly can work. Think VIRGIN Brand. Virgin has diversified into so many areas and done quite well in most of them. (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219405)
In the words of Richard Branson - The aim is to sell the consumer an experience rather than a product. i.e If you board Virgin airlines, you should expect the same high standard of customer service you get when you phone up their call centre with a query on your broadband account (Virgin Media).

For Safaricom, this is not far fetched diversification but rather expansion into a service they already provide. (I stand corrected). The fact they don't have bank halls in the form we are used to (Retail bank) doesn't mean Mpesa is not a bank.

Having said that, am not sure how well they've done with Mpesa and how this whole idea would pan out, let alone whether it's true or not.

i think safcon will sell us veges one of these days...they have become an ISP,now eti they buy a bank..next thing you'll be going to safaricom shop to buy kitunguu saumu

The question was sincere... I have never clicked on any of those adverts and I've always assumed that no one does.... judging from Google revenues, I guess I was wrong.

Unlikely... at least in the near future as the banking lobby (& politicians with huge stakes in banks) will oppose it...

lol. safaricom to buy a bank ???
the down fall of any company starts with them not concentrating on their core business !!! and safcom is no exception

@Aguytring @mozenrat...
Google began as a research project of two PhD students at Stanford. They reluctantly left their studies and soon after received their first cheque of $100,000 from an angel investor from just making a 15 minute presentation.

Right from the start, the founders were opposed to commercializing Google believing it was wrong. It was only 5 years later that the founders bowed to pressure making first money-making moves in 2000:
(i) Became default search provider for Yahoo, at a fee
(ii) Launched AdWords, self-service program, that allows advertisers to appear as sponsored links on clearly marked, separate sections.


Today
@Aguytrying is right; money is made from advertising.

But they categorise main Revenues as Google owned sites - 69% | Google Network - 27% | Other
And categorize advertisments between: Search results | Banner display

So out of interest:
- Top is Finance/Insurance industry giving $4b to Google
- most common search term is 'self-employed health insurance' where Google is paid $43 if someone click on the word
- 2nd industry is Retail, 3rd is Travel/Tourism

http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/29/google-advertising/