Circulation of daily English and Kiswahili newspapers has continued to decline over the years and this has mainly been attributed to an increase in the online readership of newspapers.
According to a recent study by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), online readership per day increased by 20.1 percent from 1,862,943 in 2016 to 2,237,608 in 2017.
The increase has been gradual since 2013. Online visitors increased from 793,046 to 1,025,043 in 2014 then increased further to 1,575,043 visitors in 2015.
However, newspapers still continue to dominate the way most Kenyans get their news as compared to online sites.
The number of English and Kiswahili daily newspapers reduced by 5.0 percent and 10.0 percent, respectively, during the review period.
In 2017, the number of English daily newspapers stood at 89,631, down from 98,747 in 2016 while Kiswahili newspapers were at 89,631 copies in 2017 down from 94,348 copies in 2016.
The number of English and Kiswahili weekly newspapers declined from 15,154 in 2016 to 14,189 in 2017 as can be seen from the table below:
