Mobile subscription in Kenya registers 2.4pc increase

Mobile subscription in the country has registered a 2.4 percent increase to 46.6 million subscribers which Communications Authority attributes to developments in mobile payments, cloud computing and mobile applications coupled with network expansion.

At 100.1 percent, mobile penetration has surpassed the 100 percent mark underlining the fact that most users have more than one SIM card.

As mobile subscriptions grew so was financial inclusion through mobile money transfer.

The amount of money transacted through mobile money transfers stood at Ksh 2.02 trillion from person to person.

The number of mobile commerce transactions was 526.9 million valued at Ksh 1.5 trillion.

As at September this year, the number of active mobile money transfer agents stood at 218,495 while mobile money subscriptions stood at 29.7 million, implying that 64 percent of the population had access to and used mobile money transfer services.

The rise in mobile penetration that surpassed the 100 percent mark is attributed to the fact that most users own more than one SIM card either from the same or different service providers.

During the three months to September, total traffic terminating on mobile networks rose 2.8 percent to stand at 14.34 billion minutes.

On-net and off-net mobile voice traffic was registered at 12.6 billion minutes and 1.6 billion minutes respectively.

The expiry of ‘Safaricom Tunukiwa Gifting promotion’ saw the total mobile voice traffic originating from Safaricom PLC network drop by 2.4 percent to record 8.9 billion minutes from 9.1 billion minutes reported last quarter.

The introduction of ‘Vuka_2_Tariff’  by Airtel Networks Limited saw an increase of 13.8 percent in local mobile voice traffic during the period under review to post 4.7 billion minutes from 4.2 billion minutes recorded during the preceding quarter.

Consequently, its voice market share rose by 3.1 percentage points to stand at 33.3 percent.

Telkom Kenya Limited registered a total of 619.3 million minutes marking a growth of 15.6 percent when compared to 535.5 million minutes reported in the preceding quarter.