Power outage: Phone users to spend GH¢150 monthly on charging as business booms

Correspondence from Eastern Region

Many business operators, especially mobile phone dealers and repairers are taking advantage of the current power outage in the Krobo area to provide big commercial mobile phone charging services.

The operators who started the business following Wednesday's indefinite power shutdown say, they charge an average of 100 to 150 phones a day with market days

Read full articleas the peak days.

This innovative business idea appears to have been rubber-stamped by what is being gradually accepted as an indefinite outage owing to the rift between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and its customers over the deployment of prepaid meters to the area.

Their clients are made up of both residents and visitors who troop to the various charging centers to have their phones charged.

The operators have become the toast of mobile phone users who are assured of alternative and reliable means of keeping their communication devices active.

Patrons pay between GH¢3 and GH¢5 to charge their feature phones and smartphones respectively.

This converts between GH¢300 and GH¢500 profit a day for the operators.
The phone charging business is mostly the side attraction for the main businesses as almost every business operator who resort to the use of generators has taken up the additional responsibility of charging phones.

These include phone dealers, seamstresses, barbers, communication centers, etc.

Despite the huge number of phones charged, the chargers guarantee owners' safety of their property as they leave their devices in their care for hours.

The phones are spread on either the bare floor or on tables amidst numerous extension electric wires.

At Soso Ventures at Agomanya Airport, Joshua Suglo sells phone accessories and offers mobile money services.

Running a generator to advance his business in the face of the power outage, residents rush to his shop with their iPhones, tablets, feature phones, Androids, chargeable boxes, etc.

According to him, though the outage began on Wednesday, it wasn't until Friday that a lot of phone users began trooping in in their numbers for his services.

"Because of the light out, the thing is affecting everybody, it's affecting the whole town because of that we're getting more customers for phone charging, it's like they're charging phones mostly," he noted.

Asked about his profit margins, Mr. Suglo who charges GH¢3 across for charging any device said though he is forced to buy GH¢100 worth of fuel on a daily basis to power his generator, profit was nevertheless generally good.

According to him, business was good due to the power outage as people could not do without their phones.

To ensure that there are no mix-ups in the phones and chargers brought, Mr. Joshua Ujah explained that the names of the customers were written on their devices, adding that they had not faced any difficulties in this regard.

Asked how many phones he's able to charge in a day, he estimated: "In a day we receive up to GH¢100, GH¢130 or GH¢140 sometimes".

GhanaWeb interacted with some persons who patronised the services of persons charging phones at a fee, they expressed gratitude to the operators for their services adding that life would have been difficult but for the commercial phone charging centres.

Teye Michael, who was one of several people who had gone to the centers to charge their phones expressed gratitude to the operators.

His calculations estimated a cost of GH¢120 to keep both phones on for a month. His fears are that he may not be in a position to charge his phone if he doesn't have money.

For Android users who must charge their phones every day, however, it'll cost them some GH¢150 a month to charge their phones.

Miss Christina Sakitey, finds the amounts being charged slightly expensive and suggested a one cedi reduction for android and feature phones, for residents to afford their services.