Kenya’s Yu reports 9.1 percent of market

Kenya’s telecom operator Yu has announced that it has seen its market share double in the third quarter, reaching 9.1 percent of the market from a previous 4.6 percent.

Yu has announced that it has seen its market share double in the third quarter. (Image: File)

The company said that its efforts to increase its subscriber base with new offerings has paid off and the company hopes to continue to boost its users in the fast-growing East African country.

Yu said in a statement that it saw over 100,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, which it said was a major influx for the company considering the overall telecom market in Kenya grew by only 1.7 percent.

CEO Madhur Taneja said “minutes of usage per subscriber on its network is rising, too. He pointed out that the trend in the industry of a continued decline in MoU can be partly attributed to the MTR freeze.”

Taneja added that “there is clearly a need for mobile telephony, particularly as mobile penetration has risen to 75.4 per 100 inhabitants, up from 74.0 per 100 inhabitants, but this could be higher if the environment allowed mobile telephony to be highly affordable.”

Tenja continued to say that Essar “has invested over $500 million in Yu’s operations in Kenya and that the level of investments for telecoms is generally very high, but this will only continue if the business environment remains conducive.”

The CEO reported that there is “likely to be an increase in the call rates charged by mobile providers.”

That could affect the industry’s overall growth and Yu warned the government’s regulator to rethink the increase in tariffs being leveled to users in order to spur growth.

Mohammed Awad