Mobile telephony services provider Safaricom has terminated two of its post-paid tariffs citing failure to make profits since their launch in 2011.
Subscribers will no longer access the Karibu post-paid tariff which has two price plans after one year. The subscribers will have to switch to other tariffs after the expiry of the one-year extended period.
The mobile giant will also not be registering any new subscribers for the post-pay services as of Monday, May 26.
Speaking during a press briefing, Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore said the service would be terminated despite a 30 percent growth in the number of users.
Collymore said the company has sent a letter to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) informing the regulator of the intended cancellation of the service.
A karibu tariff subscriber pays Sh1,000 per month and gets 900 minutes talk time for on-net calls, 100 minutes for off-net calls, 100 megabytes of data and 100 on-net SMS. Also for Sh2, 500 a month, subscribers get 2,200 minutes for Safaricom to Safaricom calls, 300 minutes to rival networks, 250 megabytes of data and 250 on-net text messages.
Compared to other Safaricom tariffs, karibu post-paid subscribers have been paying less than one shilling per minute to make on-net calls, while Safaricom customers on prepaid plans are charged Sh4 per minute for on-net calls made during peak hours which is from 8am to 10pm.