Posta’s mobile-linked mail service subscriptions hit 150,000

Posta’s CEO and Postmaster-General Dan Kagwe. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By KEVIN ROTICH
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Summary

• The service, built by Posta and Safaricom, allows customers to be alerted via SMS when their letter or parcel arrives at the post office of their choice.
• Users pay a fee of Sh300 per year, significantly cheaper than Sh2,000 charged on a normal post office box for the same period.
• M-Post is seen as the parastatal’s move to leverage technology –-which eroded its traditional business— to acquire new customers.

Subscriptions for Postal Corporation of Kenya’s mobile-linked mail service M-Post have risen to 150,000, offering the State-owned corporation an opportunity to grow its customer base.

The service, built by Posta and Safaricom

, allows customers to be alerted via SMS when their letter or parcel arrives at the post office of their choice.

Users pay a fee of Sh300 per year, significantly cheaper than Sh2,000 charged on a normal post office box for the same period. “Since we launch M-Post about two months ago with Safaricom, we have got an excess of 150,000 subscribers and it is climbing every day,” Posta’s CEO and Postmaster-General Dan Kagwe said.

“We identified the importance of technology by developing new-ground-breaking products that complement distribution solutions.”

M-Post is seen as the parastatal’s move to leverage technology –-which eroded its traditional business— to acquire new customers.

Uptake of email, calls, SMS and social media have resulted in a major decline in mail correspondence, especially among individuals.

The number of letters sent locally has dropped steadily to stand at 9.6 million units in the quarter ended September, according to statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya. Mr Kagwe said Posta wants to grow M-Post customers to five million. He added that the platform was created to attract more young people who form about 60 percent of the country’s population. Mr Kagwe spoke during the launch of the new generation commemorative stamp at the company’s headquarters in Nairobi last Friday.

“We want to reinvent ourselves in everything that we do. It is the beginning of the future that we want,” Mr Kagwe added.