Mobile payments have for the first time hit Sh2 trillion, reflecting vibrant growth in Kenya’s e-commerce sector.
The Q1 2018/19 first report released yesterday by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) covering July-September shows that 730.2 million transactions valued at Sh2.027 trillion were recorded up from 611.3 million transactions valued at Sh1.9 billion the previous quarter.
Mobile commerce transactions accounted for 76 per cent of total payment value, accounting for Sh1.55 trillion from 526.9 deals, 8.8 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter.
Person-to-person transfers were valued to Sh718.2 billion, with active mobile money transfer subscription growing by 120,000 users to 29.79 million from 29.67 million by end of 2017.
Number of registered mobile money agents grew slightly during the quarter under review to 218,495 from 206,940 in June.
Safaricom PlC’s M-Pesa continue to dominate the country’s money transfer market, controlling Sh1.58 trillion of total transaction value from 575.6 million transactions followed by Equitel Money which accounted for Sh439.2 billion of total transaction value.
At least Sh1.37 billion were transacted via little known Mobile Pay while Sh1.15 billion were channeled through Airtel Money. Only Sh197.1 million was transacted through Telkom’s T-Kash.
Even so, Safaricom PLCs’ market share for mobile subscriptions dropped by 1.2 per cent during the quarter to stand at 64.2 per cent whereas Airtel Networks Limited gained 0.9 per cent to post a market share of 22.3 percent.
Telkom Kenya Limited, Finserve Africa Limited and Mobile Pay Limited recorded market shares of 9.0, 4.2 and 0.2 per cent respectively.
The report also shows that mobile penetration rose by 2.3 percentage points to hit 100.1 per cent from 97.8 per cent in the previous quarter.
This increase has mainly been attributed to the fact that most users own more than one SIM card either from the same or different service providers.
This fact is also supported by the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) report released by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in April 2018 which indicated that at least 30 per cent of mobile users in Kenya own more than one SIM card, translating to an average of 1.3 SIM cards per subscriber.
The number of active mobile subscriptions increased to 46.6 million from 45.5 million in the last quarter, marking a 2.4 per cent increase.
In terms of market share, Safaricom PLC shed 1.2 percent during the period to stand at 64.2 per cent whereas Airtel Networks Limited gained 0.9 percentage points to post a market share of 22.3 percent.
On the other hand, Telkom Kenya Limited, Finserve Africa Limited and Mobile Pay Limited recorded market shares of 9.0, 4.2 and 0.2 per cent respectively.
Even so, Safaricom’s subscribers increased from 29.7 million in June to 29.9 million in September while Airtel recorded 10.4 million users up from 9.7 million in June.
Telkom subscribers grew from 3.9 million to 4.1 million during the quarter under review.
The total number of active Internet/data subscriptions stood at 42.2 million up from 41.1 million subscriptions reported in the previous quarter, representing a growth of 2.7 percent
The number of mobile data/Internet subscriptions grew by 2.7 percent to reach 41.8 million from 40.7 million registered during the previous quarter
On the other hand, terrestrial wireless data subscriptions declined substantially by 51.3 per cent to stand at 59,380 from 122, 037 in the preceding quarter.
This drop is attributed to the regulatory guidance issued by the Authority to Mawingu Networks Ltd to review its data on the number of data/Internet subscriptions.