Updated : February 14, 2015 09:33 am,Dubai
By Editor
By Editor
Exponential growth confirms Kenya’s standing as among the most dynamic ICT markets in Africa
The ICT sector in Kenyan continues to grow exponentially, with mobile penetration rate reaching 80.5 per cent, the latest sector statistics report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows.
The July-September 2014 quarter report indicates that the number of mobile subscriptions increased to 32.8 million up from 32.2 million, during the last quarter, representing a 1.6 per cent growth. The number of new subscriptions registered during the period was 522,435 compared to 416,390 new subscriptions recorded during the preceding quarter.
Pre-paid mobile subscriptions grew by 1.5 per cent to stand at 32.0 million up from 31.5 million subscriptions posted during the preceding quarter. Similarly, the number of post-paid subscriptions increased by 7.1 per cent to reach 712,894 during the quarter, from 665,697 subscriptions during the last quarter.
Mobile voice traffic stood at 8.0 billion minutes up from7.3 billion minutes registered during the last quarter marking an increase of 9.0 per cent during the period. Each subscriber made calls for an average of 81.9 minutes per month compared to the previous quarter’s 79.3 minutes per month.
There was a marginal increase of 1.2 per cent in the number of local outgoing SMS to stand at 6.9 billion, up from 6.8 billion recorded during the previous quarter. On average, each subscriber sent about 71 messages per month.
The number of mobile money transfer subscriptions increased by 1.4 per cent to stand at 26.9 million up from 26.6 million posted in the previous quarter. Similarly, the number of mobile money transfer active agents rose to 114,988 up from 109,286 agents registered in the last quarter representing a 5.2 per cent growth.
The report shows that the number of fixed (wired) lines registered a 4.2 per cent decline to stand at 192,778 lines down from 201,233 lines recorded in the last quarter. It was the same case for the fixed line connections which reduced to 50,018 from 52,053 lines, representing a of 3.9 per cent drop.
Similarly, the number of fixed wireless subscriptions dropped by 4.3 per cent during the period to stand at 142,760 down from149, 180 subscriptions in the last quarter.
However, Data/Internet subscriptions maintained an impressive upward trend recording a 5.8 per cent growth to reach 14.8 million subscriptions up from the 14.0 million in the preceding quarter. Mobile data/internet subscriptions rose by a similar margin of 5.9 per cent to reach 14.7 million up from 13.9 million recorded the previous quarter. Consequently, the number of estimated internet users stood at 23.2 million up from 22.3 million users in the last quarter, representing a 4.1 per cent increase during the period.
The period also witnessed a marginal increase in the International Internet Bandwidth Available (Equipped/Lit) in the country, reaching 847,516 Mbps up from 847,464 Mbps recorded in the previous quarter. The International Internet Bandwidth Used stood at 478,074 Mbps representing 56.4 per cent of the total available capacity.