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‘Market walls’ fall as corporates bow to antitrust rules
Workers at the East African Breweries (EABL) microbrewery off Thika Road, Nairobi on January 26, 2024. The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has directed EABL to open up its fridges in retail outlets to rival brands.
A widening liberal market environment is providing a boon for businesses in Kenya, helping them to lower capital and operational cost pressure.
In the latest development, East African Breweries Plc (EABL) has been directed by the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) to open up its fridges placed in retail outlets to rival brands, just months after mobile money firms began to fully share payment tills.
The order by the CAK on sharing cooler space is one of the conditions attached to its approval of the sale of a 65 percent stake in EABL by British multinational Diageo to Japanese beverage maker Asahi Group for Sh304.6 billion.
For consumers, the move by the antitrust watchdog to enforce the refrigerator rule means continued access to a wider range of beverages in retail outlets.
In the Diageo-Asahi case, the CAK earlier noted that its review had identified competition and public interest concerns that could be addressed through behavioural remedies rather than by blocking the transaction.
It found that the merged entity post-transaction would continue benefitting from EABL’s extensive network, branding arrangements, exclusive sales territories, product placement arrangements and company-owned refrigeration equipment.
These features would have the potential to keep out competing manufacturers from key retail outlets and reduce rivalry in already concentrated markets.
The directive on the refrigeration space is therefore seen to be key in maintaining competition in the sector, and fair access to products for consumers.
“The transaction involving Diageo Kenya Limited has been approved subject to the merged entity reserving at least 20 percent of the refrigeration space provided to retail outlets for non-EABL or Asahi branded products,” said the CAK on Friday.
“This requirement applies to all retail outlets, except those located in top-end drinking establishments, supermarkets, liquor stores in petroleum stations, and hotels above the two-star rating.”
Branded beverage refrigerators offer manufacturers highly visible branding within retail outlets, hence the move by providers to restrict the placement of rival products within their units.
The manufacturers also incur significant costs when providing the units to retailers, which include the cost of initial acquisition, monitoring and maintenance.
CAK added that the review followed a rigorous assessment of the potential impact of the proposed transaction on effective competition in the markets for production, distribution and retail of beer and cider, as well as the production and supply of malt and brewing grains.
Similarly, the telecommunications sector took a significant step towards greater interoperability when Safaricom opened its M-Pesa cash tills and paybills to rivals from 2022, but a gap remained since the telco’s customers could not utilise the tills run by Airtel Money, the second-largest mobile money platform in Kenya.
Airtel Money finally opened up its cash till and paybill platform to rival firms last year, completing the efforts to fully open up the mobile payments segment in the local market.
Interoperability allows participants in different systems to clear and settle payments or financial transactions across platforms.
The push to have seamless transfers of cash across all facets of rival payment platforms was primarily pushed by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) in the section of its national payments blueprint touching on telco operators.
The first phase of the strategy involved opening up direct, person-to-person cash transfers across mobile money wallets run by rival platforms, which was implemented in 2018. The third phase will involve the interoperability of agency networks, which will allow customers to deposit and withdraw cash from any agent outlet regardless of the sponsoring telco.
More recently, Safaricom has allowed customers using Wi-Fi and rival mobile networks’ data to access its all-in-one mobile application, which was launched in April 2026, after initial restrictions that locked out diaspora and users outside of its network.
The initial rollout of the new all-in-one app was only accessible on Safaricom mobile data, logging out users whenever they lost Safaricom connectivity. The telco however updated the app shortly after the launch, opening the access to other data providers
The app combines M-Pesa services with customer management tools such as home internet accounts, which were previously hosted in a separate platform known as MySafaricom App.
