- This is an improvement from Sh5.05 trillion transacted in three months to September last year.
- Airtel trounced the market leader in various categories of transactions for instance C2B transfers
Over half of Kenya's gross domestic product was transacted via mobile money in three months to December last year, illustrating the growing reliance on a cashless system.
According to the Sector Statistical Report for Q2, 2021 by Communications Authority (CA), a transactional value of Sh5.5 trillion was channeled via mobile in just three months.
This is way above half of Kenya's GDP estimated at Sh10.7 trillion in the latest economic survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
This is an improvement from Sh5.05 trillion transacted in three months to September last year.
Data shows the value of business-to-business transactions grew to Sh2.15 trillion during the period under review compared to Sh1.96 trillion moved in the first quarter.
The amount of money transferred by customers to businesses also grew to Sh1.3 trillion compared to Sh1.19 trillion in the previous quarter.
People to people mobile transactions in the three months crossed the Sh1 trillion mark for the first time to close at Sh1.12 trillion compared to Sh912 billion transacted in Q1.
The value of transactions by businesses to companies grew to an all-time quarterly high of Sh900 billion compared to Sh817 billion in Q1.
Generally, mobile money subscriptions grew by 1.8 per cent during the reference period to stand at 35.2 million, and consequently, mobile money penetration increased from 71 per cent to 72.3 per cent.
A majority of these transactions happened on the Mpesa, which accounted for 98.8 per cent of the total market share, while Airtel Money and T-Kash recorded market shares of 1.1 and 0.05 per cent respectively.
The value of Government-to-citizen(s) transfers declined by -48.6 per cent during the reference period due to a reduction in Covid-19 relief funds disbursement by the Government.
Even so, Airtel trounced the market leader in various categories of transactions. For instance, the value of C2B transfers via Airtel money was Sh1.394 trillion during the period compared to M-Pesa's Sh1.305 trillion.
The amount of money deposited on Airtel Money also exceeded that of M-Pesa. A total of Sh1.36 trillion was deposited via Airtel Money compared to Sh1.252 trillion.
The number of active mobile (SIM) subscriptions was 65.08 million compared to the 64.89 million subscriptions recorded by end of September representing a marginal increase of 0.3 per cent.
Safaricom dominated the subscription and defied the previous trend where it has been losing subscribers to rivals.
Safaricom's subscribers grew by 2.23 per cent to 42.8 million up from 41.9 million. Airtel and Telkom on other hand witnessed a drop of four and 0.42 per cent respectively.
Airtel's subscribers dropped to 16.4 million in the quarter to December compared to 17.1 million in Q1. Telkom Kenya witnessed a marginal drop in customer numbers to 4.14 million compared to 4.16 million in the previous quarter.
The continued slow uptake of mobile subscriptions as observed in the previous quarter resulted from the decommissioning of the USSD customer acquisition channel and absolute adoption of the App channel for SIM registration.
The total number of mobile phone devices connected to mobile networks was 59.58 million, out of which 33.06 million were feature phones and 26.51 million smartphones. The penetration levels of feature phones and smartphones stood at 67.9 per cent and 54.5 per cent respectively.
During the period, mobile users spent an average of 1.7 minutes on on-net calls and an average of 1.0 minutes on off-net calls.
Airtel users spent more minutes on a single on-net call averaging 2.7 minutes whereas Telkom Kenya mobile users recorded the highest average minutes per off-net call at 1.5 minutes.
Safaricom maintained market leadership in fixed data subscriptions at 36.8 per cent followed by Wananchi Group at 28.7 per cent.