Mobile phone ownership in Kenya has increased from 86 per cent in 2014 to 94 per cent in 2022 signifying the growing importance of the gadget in communication and other functions like cash transaction and trade in the country, a new survey by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) reveals.
According to the survey, many Kenyans prefer a phone to a bed, mobile phones are the most commonly found item in households at 94 per cent followed by a bed at 93 per cent.
The gap in phone ownership in urban and rural areas is not wide compared to ownership range of other electronics. In urban areas 97 per cent of the population own a phone as compared to rural area’s 91 per cent.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) states in its fourth quarter 2022 report that Samsung leads the way in Kenya’s smartphone market with 31.7-unit share. Tecno comes second with 18.8 per cent share while third placed infinix accounts for 9.2 per cent shipments. Samsung leveraged its distribution through the M-Kopa asset-financing platform, which provides underbanked customers with an opportunity to purchase products like smartphones.
Nationally, as per the KNBS survey, 66 per cent of households own a radio with 71 per cent in urban areas and 62 per cent in rural areas. Half of the households own a television, with 68 per cent in urban areas and 38 per cent in rural areas.
The penetration of computer is low among households in Kenya with 11 per cent of the population nationally owning one. There is a wide variation between urban (21 per cent) and rural (4 per cent).
The survey assigned households scores based on the number and consumer goods they own; these range from a television to bicycle or a car, and housing characteristics such as source of drinking water, toilet facilities and flooring materials.
Household Wealth Index
The household wealth index also discovered that seventy-one per cent of rural households own agricultural land as compared to 33 per cent of urban households. In addition, 78 per cent of rural households’ own farm animals as compared to 41 per cent of urban households.
“Wealth index is a composite measure of household’s cumulative living standard. In this report the wealth index is used as a background characteristic to compare the influence of various population, health and nutrition indicators,” notes KNBS.
“More than half (54 per cent) of the population in urban areas falls in the highest wealth quantile, as compared to 3 per cent in rural households.”
In Turkana County, 75 per cent of the population falls within the lowest wealth quantile, while in Nairobi City almost no one does, In Nairobi City County, 71 per cent of the populations in the highest wealth quantile. Mandera, Marsabit, and Bomet counties have the smallest proportion (2 per cent) of the population in the highest wealth quantile.
