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Kenyan mobile market records sluggish growth

By , IT in government editor
Kenya , 17 Apr 2014

Kenyan mobile market records sluggish growth

Kenya’s number of mobile subscribers increased marginally by 0.02% for the final quarter of last year, according to the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).

On Wednesday, the telecoms regulator released its second quarterly sector statistics report and revealed that the country’s mobile users reached 31.309 million, up from 31.301 million compared to the last quarter.

Kenya’s post-paid subscriptions continued to grow as well, reaching growth of 22.9% during the period.

“Post-paid subscriptions... registered during the quarter to realise 560,503 from 455,983 recorded in the previous period,” says the CCK.

“The number of prepaid subscriptions declined by 1.2% to reach 30.7 million down from 30.8 million posted during the previous quarter. However, compared to the same period of the previous year, an increase of 1.0% was recorded,” the regulator stated.

Despite this decline, prepaid subscriptions continued to account for the largest share of the total subscriptions at 98.2% during the quarter.

The East African nation’s mobile penetration rate during the quarter; however, remained at 76.9% similar to last quarter’s performance, according to the CCK.

The CCK also stated that the growth rate in mobile subscriptions has slowed substantially quarter–on-quarter over the last two years with less than 2% average quarterly growth.

Meanwhile, Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom continued to hold the number spot as the country’s s largest telco with a market share of 67.9% during the quarter.

During the period Safaricom and Telkom Kenya subscriber numbers grew as both telcos recorded growth of 1.2% and 0.4% respectively.

The CCK’s report is based on data provided by service providing an overview of the performance and development trends in Kenya’s ICT sector.

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