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Kenya's mobile subscribers hit 38 million

Xinhua, December 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Kenya's mobile subscribers hit 37.8 million as of the end of the third quarter this year, up from 36.1 million recorded in the previous quarter, industry regulator said Wednesday.

Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) said the mobile penetration has grown to reach 88.1 percent, up from 83.9 percent in the period under review.

"The increase in subscriptions and subsequent increase in mobile voice and SMS traffic was mainly driven by the operators' need to continue growing their market shares, thereby promoting products geared towards luring and retaining subscribers to their networks," said an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Sector Quarterly Statistics Report released Wednesday.

According to the regulator, the upward trend is likely to continue in the coming periods as operators seek to leverage on the existing strong demand for mobile telephony services.

Meanwhile, mobile money transfer service also continued to record steady growth due to its increasing popularity and convenience in usage.

Data from CA showed that in the third quarter, the number of mobile money transfer subscriptions rose by three percent to 28.7 million, up from 27.7 million recorded during the previous quarter.

The number of mobile money agents, on the other hand, expanded from 129,357 to 135,724.

However, the fixed network maintained a downward trend in terms of subscriptions and local voice traffic.

The regulator noted that the trend could be as a result of increased competition from the mobile sector, vandalism of copper networks and high infrastructure costs associated with the service.

Kenya currently has 31.9 million internet users, up from 29.6 million users estimated during the second quarter of this year.

As a result, the population that had access to internet services reached 742 per 1,000 inhabitants, up from 690 per 1000 inhabitants recorded during the previous quarter. Endit