The past few years have witnessed an influx of smartphones in Kenya and today, it’s easy to find the recent KCPE graduates owning Android phones and tablets.
While the three major carriers in the country, namely Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom, have quite an amazing set of phone call and SMS plans, it’s not quite the same when it comes to mobile data plans. Airtel has some amazing data plans, but for heavy internet users out there, it’s still not enough. It gets worse given that Airtel – and Telkom – doesn’t have the widest of coverage in the country, but we all know how good Safaricom is.
Speaking of Safaricom, the giant telco recently introduced a new data plan dubbed 4G Double Data. As you may have guessed, this plan earns you twice the amount of data you purchase. So, if you, for instance, purchase 350MB for Ksh 250, you get a second 350MB for free. 1GB goes for Ksh 500 and the most you can purchase is 12GB, which costs Ksh 3,000. The data lasts for a month after which it will expire.
Now, using the Safaricom Discount Shop app, an app you can download for free from the Google Play Store and weighs less than 1MB, you can purchase Safaricom data and airtime at discounted prices. The application offers 14% to 15% discounts on all airtime purchased. For instance, you only pay Ksh 43 for airtime worth 50 and Ksh 85 for airtime worth 100. The least airtime you can purchase via the app is 50 and the most is 10,000, which costs Ksh 8,500, saving you a cool Ksh 1,500 in the process.
When it comes to data, the mega deal on the Safaricom Discount Shop app offers 30GB of monthly data for just Ksh 3,000, the same amount you pay on Safaricom for 12GB of 4G Double Data. Usually, Ksh 3,000 only earns you 12GB of data on Safaricom, but if you want more, you’ll have to jump to the 90-day bundles, where Ksh 9,000 gives you 30GB and Ksh 6,000 gets you 16GB, nothing close to the discount shop app.
On the same Safaricom Discount Shop app, you can also purchase 50GB of data at just Ksh 5,100, which dwarfs any of Safaricom’s offers. However, this package, like the other one, will only last for 30 days, unlike Safaricom’s that lasts for 90 days. You can also purchase SMS plans through the app, where you get 1500 SMS for Ksh 85 and 3500 SMS for Ksh 170 instead of the usual Ksh 100 and Ksh 200 that Safaricom charges, respectively. These SMS plans will last for 30 days, just like the data plans.
For the usual 7-day data plans, the discount shop app offers similar discounts to airtime (14-15%), where the entry-level plan of 65MB will cost you Ksh 43 instead of the usual Ksh 50 while for 200MB, you pay Ksh 85 instead of Ksh 99. You can also purchase 350MB at Ksh 212 (save Ksh 38), 1GB for Ksh 425 (save Ksh 74), 3GB for Ksh 850 (save Ksh 149), 5GB for Ksh 1,275 (save Ksh 224), 7.5GB for Ksh 1700 (save Ksh 299) and 12GB for Ksh 2,550 instead of Ksh 3,000. But why pay this amount for 12GB of data when the same amount can get 30GB?
If you are still wondering how payment is made, well, it happens using MPESA, where you’ll have to fill out a form on the app, giving the details of your name, email address, phone number to be used for paying the bill as well as the phone number you are purchasing the airtime or data for.
At some point, the Safaricom Discount Shop app, whose services can also be accessed via a website, teleshopkenya.com, wasn’t all about Safaricom. The platform also sold discounted Telkom data and airtime, but this is no more, at least for now. Still, we are yet to establish whether the omission of Telkom is temporary or permanent.
For those who don’t have the Safaricom Discount Shop app yet, you can download it from the Google Play Store right away. But as noted earlier, you can also transact directly from their official website.
