Kenyan mobile network Yu, owned by India's Essar Group, has applied to the telecommunications regulator to close down its services. According to the Standard, a deal has been reportedly agreed to sell its network infrastructure to Safaricom and its customer base of around 2.7 million subscribers to Airtel. The daily says that Yu CEO Madhur Taneja summoned the firm's management to break the news that the mobile operator has applied to the Communications Authority of Kenya to sell its infrastructure and customers to rivals Safaricom and Airtel respectively.
Although the network has ranked highly in regulatory quality tests, the company has struggled to raise funds for network expansion and subscriber growth has been sluggish. Safaricom can hope to see a significant improvement in its network quality of service once it integrates Yu's equipment, and that may help to stave off a rumoured conflict with the telecoms regulator later this year when the Safaricom licence is due to be renewed. Meanwhile, Airtel with 5.5 million customers would get a substantial boost to its customer base and come closer to being able to compete with Safaricom, which remains the dominant mobile network in the country.
