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Communications Authority of Kenya(CA) has released the latest statistics for the communications sector in the country. The report is based on data provided by service providers in the communications sector as per their license conditions.

The report is for the period between 1st October to 31st December 2019, on the following service categories:

  • Mobile Telephony Services
  • Fixed Telephony Services
  • Data/Internet Services
  • Postal and Courier Services

Mobile services

The number of active mobile subscriptions in the country increased to 54.5 million from 53.2 million from the previous period. This seems weird for a country that has a population of 47 million but it is due to to multiple SIM ownership by customers. This could be why double SIM phones are popular in Kenya.

Name of operator/Indicator 

 

 Dec-19       Sep-19   Quarterly

Variation (% )

  Pre-paid

 

 Post-paid Total Pre-paid Post-paid Total  
Total Mobile Subscriptions 53,266,480 1,289,017 54,555,497 51,786,199 1,462,378 53,248,577 2.5
Safaricom PLC Airtel Networks

Limited

Telkom Kenya

Limited

34,161,953 1,173,154 35,335,107 33,211,176 1,358,893 34,570,069 2.2
14,021,519 97,050 14,118,569 13,034,554 88,038 13,122,592 7.6
3,373,133 18,813 3,391,946 3,543,796 15,447 3,559,243 -4.70
Equitel

Mobile Pay

Limited*

 1,709,875 0 1,709,875 1,901,848 0 1,901,848 -10.1
– – – 94,825 0 94,825  

Mobile money

The number of active registered mobile money subscriptions was 28.9 million and the number of active mobile money agents at 205,328. M-Pesa recorded the highest market share of 98.8 percent, whereas T-Kash recorded the lowest market share of 0.07 percent.

Mobile Money Brand/Indicator M-Pesa Airtel Money T-Kash  Totals
Agents

Active Registered Mobile

Money Subscriptions Value of C2B Transfers in KShs. 

Value of B2C Transfers in Kshs  Value of B2B Transfers in Kshs. 

Value of C2GTransfers in Kshs. 

Volume of P2P Transfers

Value of P2PTransfers in Kshs.

Total value of Deposits in Kshs 

175,959   26,313   3,056    205,328  
28,627,861   328,938   19,607     28,976,406  
293,789,439,864   201,296,536   20,942,930   294,011,679,330  
377,185,559,819   219,140,740   8,582,033   377,413,282,592  
859,614,820,943   – –  859,614,820,943  
9,709,364,860   22,221,469   0  9,731,586,329  
460,600,528   3,666,458   86,481   464,353,467  
684,005,904,527   426,493,537   75,587,883   684,507,985,947  
604,968,609,203   1,963,158,344   27,923,145   606,959,690,692  

Voice Traffic

The total local mobile voice traffic originating from Safaricom PLC networks decreased to 10.048 billion minutes from 10.084 billion minutes recorded in the previous quarter. Local mobile voice traffic for Airtel Networks Kenya Limited dropped to 4.3 billion minutes during the period under review, from 7.2 billion minutes registered in the preceding quarter.

Telkom Kenya registered a total of 515.3 million minutes down from 552.8 million minutes recorded during previous quarter.

Period Name of

Operator

/Indicato

r

Safaricom PLC Airtel Networks Kenya Limited Telkom

Kenya

Limited

Equitel Mobile

Pay

Limited*

Total
Oct-Dec 19 On-net 9,551,360,114   3,368,535,646   312,854,640   4,739,839   – 13,237,490,23 9
Off-net 496,988,306 1,004,722,340 202,506,322 28,260,793 – 1,732,477,761
Total 10,048,348,420 4,373,257,986 515,360,962 33,000,632 – 14,969,968,00 0
Market share (%) 67.1 29.2 3.4 0.2 –  
Jul – Sep 

19

On-net

 

 9,575,631,209 6,230,116,858 336,936,653 4,859,545 3,271 16,147,547,53 6
Off-net 509,174,237 970,441,315 215,909,212 28,869,802 27,810 1,724,422,376
Total 10,084,805,446 7,200,558,173 552,845,865 33,729,347 31,081 17,871,969,91 2
Market share (%) 56.4 40.3 3.1 0.2 0.0   

 

SMS

The total number of short messages sent were 15.6 billion down from 17.2 billion messages recorded during the previous quarter.

Period Name of

Operator/

Indicator

Safaricom PLC Airtel Networks Kenya Limited Telkom

Kenya

Limited

Equitel Mobile

Pay

Limited*

Total
Oct-

Dec 19

On-net 14,178,377,276   209,435,990    4,371,905   1,982,381   – 14,404,167,552 
Off-net 508,048,109   595,487,013   96,484,801   5,517,314   – 1,205,537,237 
Total 14,686,425,385  804,923,003  110,856,70

6 

7,499,695  – 15,609,704,789 
Market share (%) 94.1 5.2 0.7 0.0 –  
  On-net 15,968,436,626 363,830,758 16,656,809 2,556,209 2,503 16,351,482,905
Jul –

Sep 19

Off-net 424,935,622 301,784,521 107,604,55 0 5,358,237 21,163 839,704,093
Total 16,393,372,248 665,615,279 124,261,35 9 7,914,446 23,666 17,191,186,998

 
Market share (%) 95.4 3.9 0.7 0.0 0.0  

Data and Broadband Services

The total internet subscriptions declined to stand at 39.6 million, of which 22.0 million subscriptions were on broadband.

Indicator/Period Data/Internet Subscriptions Broadband

Subscriptions

Total Wireless Subscriptions 39,227,708 21,657,431
Mobile Data Subscriptions

Terrestrial Wireless Data Subscribers

Satellite Data Subscribers

Total Fixed (Wired) Subscriptions

Fixed DSL Data Subscribers

Fixed Fibre Optic Data Subscribers

Fixed Cable Modem Subscribers Other Fixed Data Subscribers (e.g. Radio)

39,156,202 21,595,570
70,035 60,436
1,471 1425
429,382 422,720
751 704
268,753 262,138
158,188 158,188
1,690 1,690
Total Subscriptions 39,657,090 22,080,151

Fixed Data Subscriptions per Service Provider

Wananchi Group leads the pack in terms of Provision of fibre to customers partly due to its Zuku (home) and Simbanet (home). Safaricom is following closely and it is expected that it will overtake Zuku soon due to its continued expansion of especially its home service

Name of service Provider Number of data/internet subscriptions Percentage Market share
Wananchi Group (Kenya) Ltd (Zuku and Simbanet)

Safaricom PLC

Jamii Telecommunications Ltd

Poa Internet Kenya Ltd

Mawingu Networks Ltd

Liquid Telecommunications Kenya Limited

Internet Solutions Kenya Ltd

Telkom Kenya Ltd

Frontier Optical Networks Ltd

Other Fixed Service providers

175,433 35.0
165,810 33.1
78,149 15.6
45,577 9.1
10,390 2.1
9,444 1.9
8,877 1.8
4,400 0.9
558 0.1
2,250 0.4

International Internet Bandwidth (Gbps)

Indicator/ Operator Oct-D ec 19 Jul-Sep 19 Quarterly Variation (%)
Total          Available         (Lit/Equip)

Bandwidth Capacity

  6,241.84 5,374.02 16.1
Undersea Bandwidth Capacity

 

 

Satellite Bandwidth Capacity 

SEACOM 2,940.00 2,840.00 3.5
TEAMS 1,618.00 1,000.00 61.8
EASSY 1,430.00 1,280.00 11.7
Lion 2 248.32 248.30 0.0
                   5.52 5.72 -3.5

Utilized Bandwidth in Gbps

Total Utilized Bandwidth Capacity  Undersea Bandwidth Capacity

Satellite Internet Capacity 

2,720.26 1,508.61 80.3
2,717.56 1,503.4 80.8
2.70 5.21 -48.2

Registered Domain Names

The total number of domain names dropped during the period under review to post 91,940 domains from 93,003 domains posted during the previous period.

SUB_DOMAIN   Oct-Dec 19 Jul- Sep 19
USE Domains      % Users Domains      % Users
CO.KE Companies  87,243    94.89   88,024   94.65
OR.KE

AC.KE

SC.KE

NE.KE

ME.KE

MOBI.KE

INFO.KE

GO.KE

Total

Non-Profit-Making Organizations  1,831    1.99   1,894   2.04
Institutions of Higher Education  889    0.97   918   0.99
Lower and Middle Level Institutions  902    0.98   1,075   1.16
Personal Websites and E-mail  96    0.10   109   0.12
Personal Websites and E-mail  219    0.25   238   0.26
Mobile Content  40    0.04   44   0.05
Information  155    0.17   138   0.15
Government Institutions  565    0.61   563   0.61
   91,940    93,003  -1.14

Cyber Threat Statistics

The National KE-CIRT/CC detected 37.1 million cyber threats as compared to 25.2 million cyber threat events detected in the period July – September 2019. This was a 47.2 percent increase as compared to the previous quarter, which is attributed to an exponentially high number of malware threats detected.

Cyber Threat Oct-Dec 19 Jul-Sep 19 Quarterly Variation (%)
Totals

Malware

DDOS/Botnet

Web Application Attacks

System vulnerabilities

37,133,200 25,211,269 47.2
34,854,959 20,540,231 69.7
346,704 573,421 -39.5
1,908,001 4,069,671 -53.1
23,536 27,946 -15.8