Fierce competition among mobile telecommunication companies is causing significant discomfort among vendors of mobile telephone handsets, by forcing down prices of phones.

In a bid to grow their market share, telecommunications providers have flooded the market with cheap 'network locked' phones and in the process diverted a significant number of potential phone buyers away from budding businesses spread across many city arcades in Kampala and in other major towns.

Over the past couple of years, the advent of Kabiriiti, Kakompola, Katikitiki, Kika, Kasana and many other K Promotional phones has been buttressing phone prices because companies subsidize them in the hope that they can recruit more customers to their network.

While Ushs 50,000 could not afford to get you a new phone four years ago, today, thanks to the promotional phone phenomenon, you can get two brand new and apparently durable phones.

Only recently, MTN was selling its Kabiriti at only Ushs 29, 000 while Zain came up with Kiboko at less than Ushs 40,000

Arthur Tamale a procurement officer at Simba Telecom's outlet along Kampala road said that between 7- 10 Kabiriti phones are sold from their outlet on a good day and that a similar number is sold in their major outlets across the country.

Simba is the main phone outlet for MTN, but if a similar trend holds true for other mobile telecom companies, it represents a significant number of people who are diverted away from private shop operators to 'cheap phones'.

But not to be out done, many dealers are switching to selling 'status phones' mostly from China that cost quite a fortune. Lydia Nakku working at Mutaasa Kafeero Plaza says she's had to change from selling cheap into selling expensive phones that are not likely to be imported by telecoms.

It is also possible that the over-supply of cheap phones from telecoms is partly fueled by the desire by manufacturers in the developed world to off-load huge stocks of out of fashion gadgets.

The convergence of voice with data aided by the fast growth in the internet and other technologies have caused some form of revolutions in which people are now attracted to sight and sound rather than simply voice communication.

They have been helped by the new craze by which people increasingly want to buy phones with multiple lines.

"Buyers these days want duo or tri-sim card phones. In addition, they want a phone that has a radio, blue tooth, a camera and some times one those that receive Television signals. We have managed to survive in business by giving them what they want," added Nakku.

User's experience

Apparently, the low cost of a phone is proving insufficient in attracting all people to buy K phones. Pastor Peter Muwonge disclosed that he does not intend to get one of the cheap phones soon because as he is fundraising so he can get 'a phone with everything.

Expensive cross-network calls fueling shift

The tendency towards Chinese-made multi-sim phones (such as one pictured above) is also fueled by the ugly war between phone companies which makes placing calls across networks damn expensive.

The only way to circumvent the high cross-network charges, most people have decided to buy a sim for each operator such that they use their card whenever they want to connect to someone on the same network.

Buying a multi-sim card phone therefore saves many people the burden of having to switch off the phone to swap lines.

"Even if they are cheap, I cannot afford to carry four phones. I can at least carry two phones with six lines," added Hajj Sulai Ssali, teacher from Masaka.

By Ben Wamala