Elections drive up Kenya's Q3 SMS and voice traffic

NAIROBI, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenya held two elections between August and November this year, giving the telecommunications industry a huge boost with increased volume of Short Messages Service (SMS) and voice traffic.

Thanks to the election on Aug. 8, the volume of voice traffic and SMSs rose significantly between July and September, the latest data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) showed Saturday.

Of the two, it is the use of SMS that benefited the most from the August elections, with CA noting the same trend would be registered in the October-December quarter.

During the period July to September, the total number of SMSs sent increased significantly to 19.2 billion messages from 15.2 billion registered in previous quarter, said the telecom sector regulator.

On the other hand, the total volume of voice traffic originating from mobile networks increased to 11 billion minutes, up from 10.6 billion minutes recorded in the previous period.

And the political activity saw Kenyans raise their individual minute per use per month to 90.1 from 88.4 recorded in the previous quarter.

"The increase in mobile voice and SMS traffic is attributed to the electioneering period during which these services were used as campaign tools by various politicians to reach out to the people," noted the regulator. Enditem