According to reports, Kenya’s total number of mobile subscriptions grew by 5.6 percent to 32.2 million at the end of June. This is according to Q4 statistics unveiled by the Communications Authority (CA). The statistics revealed that mobile penetration in the country rose to 79.2 percent.
In addition to mobile penetration, data/internet subscriptions reached 14.0 million, which was up from 13.3 million in March. Mobile data/internet subscriptions continued to dominate overall data subscriptions with 13.9 million subscriptions.
According to Telecompaper, the number of internet users also grew by 3 percent to reach 22.3 million. The international internet bandwidth available in the country declined by 2.1 percent to reach 847,464 Mbps, after a decrease in capacity on the Seacom cable system. Utilisation of international internet bandwidth was 436,016 Mbps, representing 51.4 percent.
Mobile money transfer subscriptions declined from 26.7 million in March to 26.6 million in June. However, the number of agents grew by 4.8 percent in the same period to reach 109,286.
According to the statistics revealed, mobile subscribers had preferred to send an SMS rather than make a phone call during the quarter. This saw a rise in the number of SMS messages sent, which increased from 6.2 billion to 6.8 billion.
Due to the increase of SMS, mobile voice traffic declined by 4 percent.
Darryl Linington
