2019 Sustainable Business Report

SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2019 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT CONCLUDING REMARKS 35 OUR NETWORK Our network is essential to the continuity and sustainability of our business. It is the foundation of all our operations, delivering our services and enabling us to transform lives. The quality, coverage and availability of our network are paramount to our competitive advantage, allowing us to differentiate ourselves in this highly competitive industry. NETWORK QUALITY We maintained our first-place position in all voice service categories and achieved first place in all categories for data service as per P3 certification, evaluated by P3 Communications (www.p3-group.com ), an independent company. This was thanks to continuous network optimisation efforts, capacity expansion, implementation of network enhancement features and expansion of the fibre network, which offers improved capacity and reliability. First position Second position KPI FY19 FY18 FY17 FY16 VOICE SERVICE* Call setup success rate Dropped call ratio Speech quality DATA SERVICE* Mean user data rates: download Mean user data rates: upload Mean web browsing session time Network delay * These seven KPIs are a simplified illustration of the full scope measured for the P3 Certification Benchmark criteria. For the purposes of this report, we have ranked ourselves against the other mobile operators in Kenya. The comprehensive P3 Certification Benchmark criteria comprises an extensive set of 29 KPIs for big cities, small cities and interconnecting highways, with each KPI having an individual score. The full set of P3 certification results can be obtained from the P3 website. NETWORK AVAILABILITY AND STABILITY Network performance FY19 FY18 FY17 FY16 Average weekly unavailable minutes (power NUR) 6.5 4.6 4.8 5 Average radio access network SUR (minutes) 25.6 22.2 22.9 41.5 While the above shows that network unavailability rate (NUR) and service unavailability rate (SUR) have increased, this rise is due to new energy saving measures, such as removal of generators and some sites being configured to switch off when no traffic is detected. These affected NUR/ SUR but not customer experience. 3G and 4G networks consume more power than 2G, so naturally our energy consumption would be expected to increase as we rolled out these technologies to more sites throughout the country. Key SDGs Average weekly unavailable minutes (power NUR) Average radio access network SUR (minutes) 6.5 25.6 Network Performance FY19 +1.9 +3.4