Remember Warid’s sensational Pakalast promotion that promised subscribers 24-hours of free calls? Smart Telecom Uganda is using the same strategy to break into the Ugandan Telecom market for both voice and data services.
Smart is offering the cheapest data rates as far as we know as a clever stunt to lure customers to its side. The company is for instance selling Smart SIM card pack for only UGX 500 and users can enjoy free calls for a whole month a only UGX 1000.
Smart Telecom Uganda data rates
Duration | Package | Cost (Ugx) | How to access |
---|---|---|---|
Daily | 1.5GB | 999 | *100*1*1*3*6*4# |
Weekly | 2GB | 4,999 | *100*1*2*3*6*4# |
Monthly | 2GB | 9,999 | *100*1*3*3*6*2# |
Let’s compare that with what other networks are offering.
Uganda Networks data comparison chart
Data | Orange | MTN | Airtel | UTL | Smart |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Daily | |||||
50MB | 1,000 | 1,200 | 1,000 | 600 | 999(1.5GB) |
Weekly | |||||
50-100MB | 2,500(75MB) | 2,500(50MB) 3,000(100MB) | 2,500(80MB) | 2,000(100MB) | 4,999(2GB) |
Monthly | |||||
2-3GB | 50,000(2GB) | 75,000(3GB) | 75,000(3GB) | 65,000(3GB) | 9,999(2GB) |
10GB | 125,000 | 125,000 | 150,000 | 115,000 |
Smart is offering a whopping 1.5GB daily for about UGX 1,000 compared to only 50MB for almost the same price from other networks. That’s a big margin.
Now look at the monthly packages. Smart Telecom Uganda is offering 2GB for only about UGX 10,000 while for the same price and data, Orange Uganda is
charging UGX 50,000! MTN, UTL, Airtel Uganda are still charging a little more for an extra 1GB of data but still not close to what Smart is giving. We did a more comprehensive comparison between telecoms with the exception of Smart Telecom where Uganda Telecom came out as the cheapest data service provider. However, as we have always stated, price should never be the ultimate factor in choosing the right provider for you. You also have to consider coverage, customer care, speeds (very important), reliability among other things.
History has showed that this kind of cut-throat service price cuts relative to the competition is not sustainable. Warid Uganda eventually sold out to Airtel because of its unsustainable pricing strategy.
However, its the subscribers that usually benefit from such market entrants. So enjoy while you still can.
Image: Smart Telecom
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I think it would only be fair to pair this up with a speed test comparison chart
True, although speed tests are still subjective. Operators might claim several variables such as location, equipment used for testing, weather, number of users on particular base station etc affected the results. So there’s no silver bullet to this comparative study.
I wonder why other players never thought about this…..increase the data caps but provide low bandwidth.
Some customers like myself would get pissed. Slow internet speeds give a frustrating customer experience and trust me, you will lose some customers instantly.
That’s the reason Warid was a second class citizen. Cost is never a determining factor in selecting the best service even though we are in a price-sensitize economy.
Well, Smart is riding on cost. I used their service for one day and it wasn’t the best experience; which got me thinking that the allocated bandwidth to some of those bundles is quite low