Internet bundle usage endorsed to join CPI basket

 A new State of the Mobile Report 2019 has recommended the addition of mobile bundles to the Consumer Price Index basket this year.

According to the report by Nendo- a local digital strategy and research firm, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics should consider tracking the average use of 500 Megabytes (Mb) and, or 1 Gigabyte (Gb) to measure the cost of living.

The index currently measures inflation rate through tracking monthly and year on year spending of commodities such as food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport, communications, clothing and footwear, and education among others.

“Last year, Kenyans used over 269 million Gb of data across video, web browsing, music, communications, social networking, and other digital content, the data consumption is expected to cross 1 billion Gb by 2022,” Nendo founder Mark Kaigwa said.

Topping the use of the bundles is visiting social media sites, searching on Google, betting, visiting adult sites and use for visual social network stories such as Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook stories. 

In the period, the report finds that internet market revenues for Kenya were estimated to be Sh110 billion and it's expected to reach Sh200 billion in the next three years as consumption is on an upward trend.

According to Kaigwa, after cash, mobile money and airtime, megabytes are Kenya's fourth currency as they are a source of insight and intelligence into human behaviour with modern technology.

The report notes that there are currently 197 different mobile bundle offers from telecommunications firm consumed on in-bundle and out-of-bundle rates for as low as Sh2 per Mb to upto Sh10,000 for 40 Gb or Sh6,000 for 210 Gb for some service providers.

While most Kenyans reportedly view the bundles as expensive, studies by Internet.org and the Economist Intelligence Unit show that Kenya has high mobile data affordability, stating the price of 500 MB as two per cent of monthly Gross National Income per capita.

This as compared to the United Nations threshold of affordability which is five per cent of average monthly income.

By contrast, in 2018 the Alliance for Affordable Internet (AAI) positioned Kenya at 4.01 per cent of GNI for the price of 1 GB which if still compared to other countries in the East African region, Kenya offers the lowest price per megabits per second in Africa at Sh340.

Since April 2009, when the country’s first undersea fiber-optic cable went live, Kenya's internet bandwidth usage has increased 109 per cent from 467 Gigabits per second to 977.04 Gbps as reported by The East Africa Marinea System.

This demonstrating increased investments as the maximum capacity available in the last five years has also moved up 458 per cent to 4,623 Gbps from 467Gbps.

The research firm expects more internet bundle usage this year as the market leaps into the age of connected devices known as the Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines that exchange data primarily through mobile networks. These can include pay-as-you-go solar panels and gas cookers or speed governors that report on over speeding minivans.