New telecommunications industry data in Kenya released Tuesday has shown that during the October-December 2018 period, the number of active mobile subscriptions in the country grew by 6.2 per cent from the previous quarter to stand at 49.5 million translating to a penetration level of 106.2 per cent, owing to multiple SIM cards being held by Kenyans.
During the quarter under review, mobile voice traffic originating and terminating on the same network grew by 2.0 per cent to register 12.9 billion minutes from 12.6 billion minutes reported in the previous quarter.
Similarly, mobile voice traffic terminating to other mobile networks increased to 1.7 billion minutes from 1.6 billion minutes registered last quarter.
Mobile voice traffic terminating to fixed networks dropped by 2.6 per cent to record 13.9 million minutes during the period under review.
The total mobile voice traffic recorded by Safaricom PLC during the second quarter increased to 9.5 billion minutes from 8.9 billion minutes reported in the first quarter.
Kenya’s biggest telecoms operator Safaricom however lost a further percentage point of subscriber market share in the period to the end of December, its fifth straight quarterly fall, data from the sector regulator showed on Tuesday.
The firm, part-owned by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone, shed 0.9 percentage points of subscriber market share to 63.3 percent, compared with 71.9 percent in September 2017 when the losing streak started.
Safaricom, which is in a closed period ahead of full year results on May 2, did not comment on the latest figures.
Airtel Networks Limited reported a drop of 5.6 per cent in total mobile voice traffic from 4.7billion minutes to 4.5 billion minutes during the period under review.
As a result, its mobile voice market share declined by 2.6 per centage points to 30.7 per cent.
The total local mobile voice traffic for Telkom Kenya Limited increased to 706.5 million minutes from 619.3 million minutes reported in the first quarter. This increase could be attributed to “Telkom Free Zones campaign”promotion, which allowed its pre-paid customers to enjoy free on-net calls in some targeted regions across the county.
The total outgoing local mobile voice traffic recorded by Finserve Africa Limited declined during the review period to post 35.2 million minutes from 38.2 million minutes registered in the preceding quarter. Mobile Pay Limited registered a total of 29,961 minutes during the quarter compared to29,482 minutes recorded in the previous quarter. The traffic volumes per service provider and their respective market shares.
