Safaricom and Telkom Kenya experienced a decline in market shares in both mobile and broadband subscriptions between July and September this year, as revealed by a recent survey conducted by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
In the first quarter of 2023/24, there were 683,160 additional mobile subscriptions. Safaricom led with 44,115,281 active mobile subscriptions, followed by Airtel with 18,932,398, and Telkom with 2,110,079. Equitel and Jamii Telco had 1,508,285 and 456,277 active subscribers, respectively.
According to a recent survey by the Communications Authority of Kenya, international mobile voice traffic increased between July and September. In quarter one, Airtel Networks Ltd recorded the highest average on-net minutes/call, while Jamii Telecommunications Ltd recorded the highest off-net minutes/call. The CA attributes this to the competitive tariffs offered by the two operators.
The Survey By The Numbers
- Safaricom’s market share in mobile (SIM) subscriptions stands at 65.7 percent and Telkom Kenya controls a paltry 3.1 percent of the mobile (SIM) subscriptions.
- Safaricom and Telkom control 61.9 percent and 2.5 percent of Kenya’s broadband share respectively.
- Airtel, which gained in both mobile (sim) subscriptions and broadband, now controls 32.7 percent and 28.2 percent market share respectively.
- According to the quarter one 2023/24 survey, the incoming international mobile voice traffic in minutes increased by 25.3 percent to 85.3 million minutes, while outgoing international mobile voice traffic grew by 4.8 percent to post 179.7 million minutes.
- This growth is attributed to the African Climate Summit in September 2023. The incoming and outgoing international mobile SMS were recorded at 9.4 million and 3.7 million messages, respectively.
- The total local mobile voice traffic rose by 4.0 percent to 22.2 billion minutes from 21.4 billion minutes reported in the last quarter of 2022/2023.
Mobile money subscriptions reached 38.1 million, resulting in a penetration rate of 75.2 percent. This reflects a slight increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter.
