Two months after Safaricom shareholders approved the acquisition of Essar Telecommunications Kenya, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) and the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya have given the company approval.

Described as one of the largest acquisition in Kenya's telecoms sector, Safaricom will take over YuMobile's infrastructure under Essar Telecoms, while Airtel will take over the YuMobile customers.
Safaricom hopes that the acquisition will improve customer service with the extra spectrum it will receive.

The sale of YuMobile came about when the company made annual losses totalling $33.5 million since its launch in 2008.

"This strategic acquisition provides us with the opportunity to bolster our services to our 22 million customers. I am confident that our customers in both urban and rural areas will benefit from the anticipated improvement of the quality of service on both voice and data services as we switch on more of the acquired capacity," said Safaricom's chief executive officer, Bob Collymore.

Collymore also announced that 150 workers from the company will be absorbed into the company, after going through interviews.

During the announcement of the half year results on Tuesday Collymore said, "That they [the employees] now know there is an employable future."