The uptake of mobile services by Kenyans continued to grow during the first quarter of the 2015/16 Financial year spanning July to September 2015. According to the quarterly sector statistics report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), at the end of the quarter, mobile penetration stood at 88.1per cent with 37.8million subscribers up from 36.1 million in the previous quarter.
Market share
Safaricom Limited recorded a market share of 66.3 per cent which is a 1.7 per cent decline from last quarter’s 67.0 per cent. Airtel also lost its market share by 0.3 percentage points to stand at 19.1 per cent. Orange Kenya and Equitel (Finserve Africa Limited) on the other hand gained market shares to stand at 11.8 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively.
Internet/Data subscriptions
Other considerable gains were recorded in the Internet/data market, which has registered 21.6 million subscriptions up from 19.9 million in the last quarter. The number of Internet users grew to 31.9 million from 29.6 million in the previous quarter. Consequently, the portion of the Kenyan population accessing Internet services reached 74.2 per 100 inhabitants up from 69.0 per 100 inhabitants recorded in the previous quarter.
The number of broadband subscriptions increased by 19.3 per cent to reach 6.3 million up from 5.3 million subscriptions recorded during the previous quarter marking a penetration level of 14.7 per cent.
Voice Segment
There was heightened activity in the voice segment, which saw local mobile traffic increase significantly by 18.2 per cent to 10.8 billion minutes up from 9.2 billion minutes posted during the previous quarter. On average, each subscriber talked for 95.8 minutes per month during the quarter up from 84.9 minutes the previous quarter. This was catalysed by special offers and promotions carried out by the operators during the period.
The report shows that pre-paid subscriptions continue to dominate the mobile telephony sector, registering 36.8 million subscribers, accounting for 97.3 per cent of the total subscriptions. Post-paid subscriptions saw a marginal increase to 989,889 up from 963,684 in the previous quarter.
Mobile Money Transfer
The total number of mobile money transfer subscriptions grew by 3.0 per cent to stand at 28.7 million during the quarter under review up from 27.7 million subscriptions posted in the previous quarter. The net gainers within the quarter were M-Pesa, Equitel Money and Mobikash by 3.7, 24.3 and 2.3 percent respectively. Airtel Money and Orange Money lost by 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent respectively. The total number of active mobile money transfer agents stood at 135,724 during the quarter up from 129,357 active agents reported during the last quarter.
Source; Communications Authority Kenya
