Evaluation of market strategies used by Airtel Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the market strategies used by Airtel Uganda. Marketing is the life blood of a business and is driven by the stiff competitive market environment which forces telecommunication companies to adopt strong marketing strategies of which Aggressive marketing option becomes a part. The study was guided by three research objectives that include: Identification of the market strategies, finding out the challenges ingrained with the market strategies, and designing possible ways of rejuvenating the market strategies used by Airtel Uganda. The study used descriptive research design with quantitative approach. It was cross-sectional and non-experimental in nature and unit of analysis were customers on Airtel network. Primary data was collected from the customers and analysed using SPSS to generate the descriptive statistics include mode, mean, and standard deviation. Findings from the study indicated that Airtel Uganda use majorly price strategy, product support strategies and service support strategies to market the products. Results also indicated that language barrier and stiff competition affect the marketing strategies used by the company. However, deployment of staff locally and allocation of more money to adapt all the available marketing strategies were the proposed solution. The study concluded that, Airtel Uganda need marketers familiar with the local language to attract majority of the customers in rural area. It was further established that, the company need to improve on it is network signals to tap the market. The study recommended that the government can reduce on the tax rates charged on Telecommunication Company as this will boast their operations further, marketers should visit rural areas after understanding the local language used by people in the area. Therefore, telecommunication companies should embrace, exploit and innovate on the available market strategies in order to remain a float in competing for future market.