Every Kenyan has almost two mobile phones as the country leads Africa in penetration.
Latest sector statistics by the Communications Authority (CA) for the second quarter of the year ended December 31, 2022, shows the number of mobile subscriptions increased to 65.7 million compared to 65.5 million in the previous quarter.
"During the reference period, the rate of subscription rose significantly, hitting a penetration of 133.1 percent,'' CA said.
Safaricom Plc, the leading network provider in Kenya continued to command the market, accounting for 63 per cent of mobile subscribers in the country, followed by Artel at 17.6 million, Telkom at 3.06 million and Equitel at 1.52 million.
Safaricom has been losing subscribers to the competition, with Airtel gaining almost three per cent in market share in the past three years.
Mobile phone users made more calls during the period under review compared to the first three months of the financial year, with the total outgoing domestic mobile voice traffic increasing by 10.1 per cent.
This resulted in 20.8 billion minutes of calls from 18.9 billion recorded in the previous quarter.
The growth is attributed to the various voice promotions and special offers launched by the market players during the period coupled with the long school holidays and the festive season.
Customers on Airtel Networks spent more time on a single on-net call averaging 2.8 minutes.
Further, Telkom Kenya Ltd and Equitel customers recorded the highest average minutes of use per off-net call at 1.3, mainly attributed to the lower calling rates offered by the operators.
The uptake of mobile money services remained steady with the reference period recording 38.6 million subscriptions up from 37.4 million recorded during the previous period, representing a penetration rate of 78.2 per cent.
International incoming mobile voice traffic declined by 3.4 per cent whereas international outgoing mobile voice traffic rose by 4.6 per cent during the reference period.
International incoming and outgoing mobile SMS declined by 5.6 and 6.1 per cent to 8.6 million and 4.7 million messages respectively.
This is mainly a result of increased preference for OTT channels such as Whatsapp and the availability of lucrative special offers and promotions for data bundles that facilitate access to OTTs.
There was a 15 per cent decline in SMSs usage to 12.1 billion due to rising OTTs options like Whatsapp, Instagram and Telegram.
The total mobile data or Internet subscriptions stood at 47.7 million during the reference period, out of which 66.8 per cent were on mobile broadband.
Internet users have embraced higher mobile network generations such as 4G that offer faster Internet speeds that enhance customer experience.
"The minutes of use per month per subscription increased from 96.4 recorded in the first quarter to 105.7 minutes during the reference period. Conversely, short messages sent per month per subscription declined from 72.4 to 61.4 messages,'' CA report shows.
During the quarter under review, Safaricom recorded the highest market shares in fixed data subscriptions at 46.1 per cent followed by Wananchi Group at 31.1 per cent.
Others are Poa Internet at 14.9 per cent, Liquid 2.2 per cent and Mawingu at 1.8 per cent.
The total utilised undersea bandwidth capacity grew by 5.5 per cent to 6,467.36 out of which, 4,361.54Gbps was used in the country and 2,105.82Gbps sold outside the country.
