Nairobi residents rush to beat digital deadline
Set top box dealers continued to record sales of up three times their usual business on Christmas Day as Nairobi residents rushed to acquire the devices before the Thursday night’s switch off of analogues signal.
At the Kencom GOtv tent, one of the attendants said they had sold about 100 decoders by 10pm. She added that on Tuesday they had sold about 300 units as opposed to an average of 150 before the switch-off date became definite.
“Sales have doubled in the last few days. We are doing good business today despite there being little pedestrian traffic,” said Benedict Murimi in charge of another tent at the National Archives.
The company- a subsidiary of DStv- has set up nearly 30 tents in the CBD to sell the gadgets which are retailing at Sh3,300.
“It’s too much. Especially at this Christmas period; do you spend such an amount for the family or buy a decoder? January is equally a hard month,” said Felix Wambua, a customer.
ICT Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi took to twitter to confirm the switch-off even as a large percentage of city residents are likely to be left in the dark.
“Merry Christmas fellow Kenyans. If you are in Nairobi and its environs, ensure you have an STB. Analogue switch off at midnight kesho,” he said on his twitter account.
Nation Media Group, Royal Media Services and Standard Media G