Safaricom has announced the opening of its 45th shop in Kitengela town and unveiled its Nairobi East regional office as part of an ongoing strategy to increase physical presence across the country.

The telco initiated the brick and mortar plan in July 2016 on the back of increased traffic to Safaricom shops during the preceding financial year with 2.4 million visitors and the sale of 6.4 million phones and accessories, 80% of which were 3G and 4G smartphones and tablets.

Steve Okeyo, Director of Regional Sales and Operations at Safaricom says the regionalisation strategy is aimed at improving customer service.

"By decentralising our operations and increasing our touch points, we aim to serve our customers even better and enhance relationships as we continue on our mission to transform lives," says Okeyo.

The Nairobi East regional office, situated at the Sameer Business Park, will act as a hub for the wider Machakos, Kitui and Makueni counties as well as the nearby Kajiado county and neighbouring parts of Nairobi.

Safaricom has opened other regional headquarters at the Coast and in the Rift Valley regions and has revealed plans to open more offices in the Nyanza and Western regions, the greater Nairobi West area, and Northern Kenya as well as Mt. Kenya regions.

Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom who opened the first regional office in Nakuru late last year says telco customers, who constitute 71.2% of Kenya's mobile market according to the latest statistics report issued by the Communication Authority of Kenya, will be provided with services that include M-Pesa, SIM registration and SIM swaps from a bolstered physical presence of the telco.

"The expansion of our services to the regions is aimed at engaging our customers from the grassroots, which then helps us address issues faster."

Safaricom's latest expansion comes a week after the announcement of the looming transfer of Vodafone Groups 35% interest in Safaricom to Vodacom South Africa in exchange for new ordinary shares in Vodacom for Vodafone. That transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of the 2017 calendar year.

Shameel Joosub, Group CEO Vodacom at Vodacom told ITWeb that Safaricom has high growth potential. "Acquiring a strategic stake in Safaricom will provide our shareholders with access to a high growth, high margin, high cash generation business operating in a high growth market. In addition to producing mutually beneficial opportunities for growth, it will create further incremental value through the close cooperation between the two businesses, particularly in driving M-Pesa adoption across our operations."