CA Report: Safaricom Limited controls 71.2% of Kenya’s mobile subscriptions
During the October-December 2016 period, the mobile service sub-sector posted 38.9 million active mobile subscriptions up from 38.5 million subscriptions recorded in the previous period, July-September 2016. This represented a slight growth of 1.0 percent. When compared to the same period of the previous financial year, there is an increase of 1.2 million subscriptions. Subsequently, mobile penetration level grew by 0.9 percentage points during the period under review to stand at 88.2 percent up from 87.3 percent recorded last quarter.
During this same quarter under review, 96.4 percent of the mobile subscriptions were pre-paid compared to 96.5 percent recorded in the last quarter while the number of post-paid stood at 3.6 percent subscriptions. In short, 37.5 million of the mobile subscriptions were pre-paid while 1.4 million were post-paid.
Mobile Subscriptions
Source: CA
Safaricom Limited’s market share increased by 2.2 percentage points to stand at 71.2 percent in the quarter under review. The total number of subscribers stood at 27.7 million compared to 26.6 million in the preceding quarter. This represented a growth of 4.2 percent. The number of pre-paid subscriptions was recorded at 26.4 million while post-paid stood at 1.2 million subscriptions
On the other hand, Airtel Kenya nominally gained 0.1 percentage points to acquire a market share of 17.6 percent during the period under review. A breakdown of the subscriber numbers reveals that Airtel recorded 6.8 million subscriptions during the quarter up from 6.7 million subscriptions posted in the last quarter. This represented a growth of 1.2 percent. The number of pre-paid subscriptions was recorded at 6.7 million while post-paid stood at 137,664 subscriptions.
Telkom Kenya Limited on the other hand recorded a significant drop of 0.2 percentage points in its market share to stand at 7.4 percent. The total subscriptions for the firm were 2.8 million during the period under review down from 2.9 million recorded in the previous quarter. This represented a decline of 1.2 percent. The number of pre-paid subscriptions was recorded at 2.8 million while post-paid stood at 8,871 subscriptions
Similarly, Finserve Africa Limited (Equitel) recorded a decrease in market share of 2.1 percentage points to stand at 3.8 percent. This was mainly attributed to the revision of data by the service provider during the quarter under review. The subscriptions stood at 1.4 million for the fourth quarter ending December 2016 from 2.2 million recorded in the previous quarter. This represented a decline of 34.5 percent.
The market share for Sema Mobile Services remained below 0.0 percent with 270 subscribers up from 266 subscriptions recorded in the previous quarter. This represented a rise of 1.5 percent.
Mobile Subscription per operator
Source: CA
