From April to the end of June 2020, the value of person to person mobile transfers reached KSh 722.6 Billion, a 7.2% increase from KSh 674.1 Billion mobile transfers between January and March 2020.
The Communications Authority(CA) attributes this growth to the government directive to waive transfer fees for mobile transactions below KSh 1,000.
In its Q4 Sector Statistics Report for the period between April and June, 2020 CA reports that the volume of person to person transfers increased by 24.3% to 559.04 Million from 449.89 Million between January and March 2020.
During this period, the value of transfers from customers to businesses rose 43.8% from KSh 310.48 Billion to KSh 446.50 Billion, the highest increment during the quarter.
Transfers from business to customers increased by 5.4% from KSh 365,33 Billion to KSh 385.11 Billion.
Mobile cash transfers between businesses increased by 13.3% from KSh 878.16 Billion to KSh 994.64 Billion at the end of June, 2020-as more firms went cashless as a measure to fight the spread of the pandemic.
Electronic cash transfers between individuals and Government agencies fell 62.5% from KSh 23.31 Billion to KSh 8.73 billion as the virus hit businessess and eroded their ability to fulfil their tax obligations.
The amount of cash deposited in mobile wallets between April and June 2020 increased by 4.3% from KSh 608.16 Billion to KSh 634.03 Billion.
As at 30th June 2020, active mobile money subscriptions stood at 30.5 million, compared to 29.19 Million at the end of March 2020, an increase of 4.6%.
M-Pesa continued to dominate the mobile money service with a market share of 98.9% in a segment that had 223,184 active mobile money agents.
During the quarter under review, the total local mobile voice traffic originating from mobile networks stood at 15.2 billion minutes, which was a decline of 0.9 per cent from 15.3 billion minutes recorded in the previous quarter.
This is attributed to reduced business activity during the curfew period occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic, which affected standard calling patterns.
However, there was a general increase in local mobile voice traffic despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which was reported in Kenya in mid-March 2020.
During the same period, Safaricom’s voice traffic market share fell by 5.4 percentage points to 60.3 per cent.
Mobile voice traffic originating from Airtel grew to 5.4 billion minutes from 4.7 billion minutes recorded in the previous quarter.
This is attributed to the roll-out of Tubonge 10 plan tariff, a voice bundle pack introduced by the operator where consumers were paying KSh10 for 100 minutes per day. Consequently, its market share rose by 5.2 percentage points to 36.1%.
Telkom Kenya Limited’s outgoing voice traffic rose from 486.7 million minutes posted in the previous quarter to 524.2 million minutes in the Fourth Quarter. Equally, its market shares grew by 0.3 percentage points to stand at 3.5 per cent.
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Equitel’s outgoing voice traffic declined to 25.3 million minutes during the period under review from 31.8 million minutes recorded in the preceding quarter. During the same period, its voice market share stood at 0.2 per cent.
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