Airtel unveils new brand for Zain Kenya

“I AM confident that over the coming years Airtel will win the hearts of customers in Kenya and emerge as one of the most admired brands of the continent,”Rene Meza Airtel Kenya Managing Director.

Just months after acquiring Zain in Africa, Bharti Airtel, one of the leading global telecommunication companies with operations in 19 African and Asian countries has launched the Airtel brand and unveiled the new brand identity across its 16 African operations.

With the unveiling of the new brand identity, Airtel becomes the master brand for all the group’s 19 operations in Asia and Africa covering over 200 million customers.

Here in Kenya, Airtel replaces the Zain brand and comes with a promise of delivering high quality customer benefits through the power of the global Airtel brand.

As a consequence of this, all Airtel Kenya products and services will follow the Airtel Brand structure.

To further enhance its gunning for the mobile money transfer market that has recently taken centre stage in the on-going all-out war among Kenya’s Telcos, the fast growing ZAP mobile money service has also re-branded into Airtel Money.

This comes just a week after Orange launched there long awaited money transfer dubbed Orange Money.

In an announcement released in Nairobi, Bharti Airtel CEO and joint Managing Director Mr. Manoj Kohli said that the continental rebrand to Airtel now brings together all the firm’s operations under a single identity.

“Airtel brings together all our operations under a single, strong and unique brand identity. We can deliver more for our customers by operating a single brand across Africa to fulfill our vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services for all our customers.

The new youthful identity will be the most loved brand in the daily lives of African people for years to come,”said Kohli.

“Our customers will experience the same familiar brand and enjoy consistent quality of service, reliability, innovation and affordability wherever they live, work or travel,” said Jayant Khosla.

Airtel Kenya Managing Director Rene Meza expressed the firm’s commitment to bridging the digital divide with a strategic goal to win the customers hearts in Kenya.

As part of the celebration of unveiling the new brand, Airtel also announced the launch of a new ultra low handset package which effectively provides a mobile phone free of charge to all new subscribers.

The package launched in conjunction with Nokia, will be priced at Kshs1850 and includes a free SIM card and the equivalent value in Airtel talk time and SMS messages.

Bharti Airtel acquired Zain’s operations in 15 countries in Africa at a cost of Kshs856. The transaction makes Bharti Telecom one of the five largest mobile operators in the world.

Safaricom currently controls the largest subscriber base of 12 million while Zain Kenya (now Airtel) controls two million subscribers only.

BRIAN ADERO in Nairobi, Kenya