This archive report was first published on 4 July 2020.
Stiff Competition in Kenya's Mobile Industry ¶
According to a recent survey, the mobile data subscriber base of Safaricom dropped between January and March 2020, a trend attributed to cutthroat competition in the industry. During the same period, Airtel Networks Limited subscribers recorded the highest duration of on-net minutes per call at 4.0 minutes.
The average Minutes of Use per Call for on-net and off-net local mobile voice traffic stood at 1.6 and 1.1 minutes respectively, during the period under review. This is attributed to the fact that operators offer lower calling rates within their network as compared to across other networks.
Mobile data subscriptions for Safaricom also declined during the period under review following stiff competition from other operators such as Airtel Networks Limited that reviewed their Vuka Pay as You Go tariff for mobile data from Sh4/MB to Sh2.3/MB.
As of March 31, the number of active mobile subscriptions in the country stood at 55.2 million translating to mobile (SIM) penetration of 116.1 per cent. During the third quarter of the Financial Year 2019/20, the number of active registered mobile money subscriptions stood at 29.1 million while the number of active mobile money agents stood at 202,102.
SEE ALSO: Telkom loses 6,000 mobile money users
During the quarter, 34,644,531 cyber threats were detected, representing a slight decline from the previous quarter in which 37,133,200 cyber threats were reported. Further, 17,844 advisories were issued by the National KE-CIRT which was an increase from the 16,654 issued in the previous quarter.
Between January and March, most of the postal and courier traffic dropped as communication moved online, coupled with the end of the busy festive season. The number of letters posted locally declined by 19.3 per cent to 8.5 million letters, down from 10.5 million letters posted in the previous quarter.
