About 6 million Kenyans Use “Reverse Call’ Service Daily

Safaricom has revealed that at least 6 million people used the ‘reverse call’ service daily in the year to March 31, highlighting the tough times faced by Kenyans in purchasing airtime amid the high cost of living. The figure represents 18.3 percent of Safaricom’s 32.8 million active customers over the period.

‘”We connected 16,226 homes and noted 6 million customers daily engaging on the reverse call service,” Safaricom stated in its 2022 sustainability report released on Tuesday.

The telecommunication giant introduced the “Reverse Call” feature in June 2019 to solve the problem of lack of airtime among Kenyans. The service enables a caller with insufficient airtime to initiate a call by transferring the cost of the call to the receiver by simply adding a hashtag (#) before the number they are calling.

For example, when one is calling 0711 000 000 and they have no airtime to call, all they have to do is add a (#) to transfer the cost of the call to the 0711 000 000 such as #0711 000 000.

The reverse call feature is taking on the telco’s please call me service which involves a customer sending a free message to another customer asking the recipient to call back.

Safaricom also noted the popularity of its ‘Storo Bonus’ product, which rewards customers with free airtime once they spend a specified amount of airtime in a day. The telco noted that about 2 million people used the product daily during the period under review.

“Under Storo Bonus, a popular service that rewards all pre-paid customers for their loyalty, we engaged 2 million customers daily,” the company said.

At the same time, Safaricom’s M-Pesa overdraft service Fuliza recorded daily growth of 1.4 billion shillings in the year to March 31, signaling Kenyan’s preference for short-term loans. Fuliza loans hit a new high of 502.6 billion shillings compared to 351.2 billion shillings recorded in the previous year.

Similarly, Fuliza subscribers increased to 6.9 million borrowers from 5.9 million borrowers reported in March 2021.