The gas cylinder will come equipped with a smart meter that shows how much gas the customer has paid for and how much they have remaining. Payments will be made through M-Pesa, with the gas automatically disconnecting when a customer has completely consumed the amount paid for. Safaricom is extending its digital and payment capabilities to M-Gas, powering the smart meter technology on each cylinder.
When discussing the Internet of Things, it is a good idea to remember that the “things” in question can range from the large and technologically advanced to the very humble yet indispensable. Safaricom’s partnership with M-Gas (a subsidiary of U.K.-based Circle Gas) uses the IoT to link two household utilities that usually are not linked—phone and gas. Both are essential and both are used constantly on a daily basis; therefore the connection between the two is not as counterintuitive as it may seem at first. This innovative idea aims to make an essential commodity consistently available to a budget-conscious demographic that may struggle to make ends meet.
The partnership is noteworthy in that it provides the ability to cook with gas even to households that are not equipped with gas lines or a stove, since the service comes in the form of an IoT-enabled gas cylinder that connects directly to a purpose-built burner. Clearly, this service, with its very low price point is an outreach to the poor populations in Kenya, who may live in remote areas. As such, apart from whatever revenues it will generate, it should benefit the operator by bolstering its reputation as a company that is friendly to the poor and provides them access to vital services and commodities. The perception of community-mindedness helps strengthen an operator’s brand, particularly in developing markets such as this one.
The extension of the extremely popular and successful M-Pesa mobile money platform into the realm of IoT is creative and makes good market sense. By creating a synergy between mobile telephony, mobile money and domestic cooking gas, Safaricom is looking after the needs of its customer base, enhancing its public perception, and establishing a revenue stream that is securely based on an essential commodity. Since M-Pesa already has a huge number of users in Kenya, attracting customers to the gas service should not be a particularly onerous challenge.
Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance.
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