4th Quarter Communication Sector Statistics Report [2014/2015]

Cellular Mobile Services

The country’s mobile market has continued to demonstrate strong growth with the period under review recording 36.1 million mobile subscriptions marking a 3.6 per cent increase from the previous period. This number has also grown by 3.9 million subscriptions when compared to the same period of the previous year that posted 32.2 million mobile subscriptions. This could be attributed to the increased demand for mobile data services, m-commerce, m-banking services and other emerging mobile services with the report by CAK showing that Safaricom and Airtel have lost ground even as Equitel and Orange gain.

During the quarter, Finserve a newly licensed MVNO launched its mobile services resulting into market changes with regard to number of players, subscriptions and shares. During the quarter under review, Safaricom Limited recorded a market share of 67.0 per cent which was a decline from last quarter’s 67.1 per cent. Bharti Airtel also lost its market share by 0.8 percentage points to stand at 19.4 per cent. Orange Kenya and Equitel (Finserve Africa Limited) on the other hand gained market share by 0.4 and 0.5 percentage points to stand at 11.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively.

Incredibly, Safaricom Limited lost its market share by 2.9 percentage points to register 68.8 percent market share down from 71.7 percent recorded in the previous quarter. This while, Equitel (Finserve Africa Limited) recorded on-net traffic of 2.8 million minutes during the quarter up from 2.3 million minutes posted during the previous period. Traffic to other mobile networks stood at 19.7 million during the quarter.

Mobile money transfer stats also paint a positive picture particularly for Equitel which has just reported tremendous growth. According to CA, the number of mobile money transfer subscriptions rose by 3.5 per cent to stand at 27.7 million during the quarter under review up from 26.7 million subscriptions in the previous quarter. When compared to the same period of the previous year, there was a 7.9 per cent growth. The number of active mobile money transfer agents increased to 129,357 active agents during the quarter up from 126,622 in the previous quarter. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, there were110, 882 active agents this represents a 16.7 per cent growth.

Yesterday, during an investor briefing session, Equity Group Holdings MD Dr. James Mwangi confirmed that Equitel, is now enjoying a steady growth on its transaction values and managed to close at transactions valued at Sh7.4billion last month up from Sh2billion registered in January this year. Payment transaction volumes on Equitel have more than doubled to Sh1.5billion as at August up from 725million in January. From a low of 4 transactions per customer last January, the average customer transactions on Equitel now stand at 19.

During the quarter under review, the total number of local outgoing mobile voice traffic grew by 4.9 per cent to post 9.2 billion minutes up from 8.7 billion minutes reported in the previous quarter. The total traffic recorded for the financial year 2014-15 increased by 11.6per cent to stand at 34.0 billion up from 30.4 billion minutes recorded in the previous year.

The total number of SMS sent has maintained an upward trend regardless of the stiff competition from OTTs. During the quarter under review, local SMS traffic stood at 6.57 billion up from 6.55 billion messages reported in the previous quarter. Similarly, the volume of SMS sent throughout the year grew significantly to 27.4 billion up from 24.4 billion messages sent during the previous year.

During the quarter under review, international incoming voice traffic declined significantly by 10.9 per cent to stand at 160.4 million down from last quarter’s 180.1 million minutes. Traffic within the EAC region contributed 47.5 million minutes whereas non-EAC countries contributed 112.9 million minutes. The total traffic for the financial year under review was recorded at 629.5 million up from 591.1 million minutes posted during the last financial year.

Fixed Telephone Services

The de-commissioning of Telkom Kenya’s CDMA network has significantly affected the number of fixed line subscribers who have been gradually been migrated to GSM services. During the quarter under review, the total number of fixed lines was reported at 87,774 down from 202,961 lines reported during the previous quarter. Compared to the previous year, the FY2014-15 recorded a 56.3 per cent decline.

Data/Internet Services

Generally, the data market in the country has continued to register growth following the increased use of data/internet enabled mobile devices and the increased connection of last mile fibre optic network. The quarter under review registered an increase of 5.9 per cent in internet/data subscriptions to stand at 19.9 million. Consequently, the number of internet/data users grew by a similar margin to stand at 29.6 million during the quarter. The number of internet/data subscriptions and users has grown by 42.0 and 32.9 per cent respectively when compared to the same period of the previous year.

During the period under review, the international Internet bandwidth available in the country (Lit/equip capacity) increased to reach 1,668,561Mbps up from 1,668,546Mbps recorded during the last quarter. This capacity grew by 96.9 percent when compared to 847,464.4 Mbps recorded during the previous year. This growth was mainly contributed by TEAMS, which upgraded its system and lit more capacity to accommodate growing demand for bandwidth.

Mobile data/internet subscriptions contribute 99 per cent of the total subscriptions with the quarter under review registering 19.8 million subscriptions. This number has grown by 42.2 per cent since the same period of the previous year.

Postal And Courier Services

The number of letters posted locally for postal and courier sub-sector decreased by 6.3 per cent to register 15.6 million letters up from 16.7 million letters recorded in the last quarter. Similarly, the total number of letters sent throughout the financial year increased by 0.6 per cent to record 59.4 million up from 59.1 million letters sent during the previous year.

The number of courier items sent decreased by 8.7 percent during the period to record 314,272 items from 344,222 items recorded in the last quarter. At the same time, the items sent during the FY 2014/15 were registered at 2.5 million compared to 2.6 million in the previous year.

The number of letters received from other the countries dropped by 9.5 percent to stand at 2.2 million during the quarter under review. Similarly, the volume of letters received during the 2014/15 financial year decreased by 1.6 percent to record 9.5 million letters.

Letters going out of the country dropped by 41.1 percent to reach 1.3 million during the quarter. However, the Financial Year 2014/15 posted a significant increase of 40.4 per cent to register 5.2 million letters up from 3.7 million letters sent in the previous year.

Read the complete report here.