Effects of Innovation Strategies on Mobile Service Providers in Kenya

In the last decade, ICT development has become a key strategic area for policy engagement in emerging economies. However, research on predictive power of innovative strategies on the competitive performance of mobile operators in Kenya is inadequate. This study explored this area in the hope of providing important answers to how innovation can be used to leverage performance of mobile service providers in Kenya. The general objective of the study was to investigate effects of various innovation strategies on competitive performance of the four mobile companies in Kenya namely, Safaricom ltd, Airtel ltd, Telkom Orange and Essar’s Yu. the study revealed that indeed, the mobile service providers compete fiercely on technology, product, process and market factors. Characteristics of the industry are such that each company intends to outpace the other although the market is led by Safaricom. While technology issues are not considered very important at this stage of competition in the industry, money transfer and M-banking are the frontiers for competitive performance. Competitive Pricing and customer value preposition has been applied mainly by the followers to outwit the leader.