2011/2012 CCK Mobile Sector report

Mobile phone users in the country increase by 4 percent, inches to the 30 million  

According to Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) report released on Tuesday, mobile subscription in the country has increased to 29.2 million as at 31 March 2012, compared to December last years’ 28.08 million.

The 16 percent growth is attributed to the growth of subscriber base being driven by mobile operators and their extension of network coverage around the country.

74 percent of the population has access to mobile telephony services up from 71.3 percent posted at the close of the previous quarter.

In new mobile subscriptions in the country, Safaricom remains the leading operator with 71.02 percent, followed by Essar Yu’s at 10.01 percent while Orange and Airtel Kenya come third and fourth with 9.52 percent and 9.45 percent respectively.

Internet usage in the country increased to 11.8 million, a 4.7 percent rise from 11.3 million recorded the previous quarter.

Mobile data/Internet subscriptions on GPRS/EDGE and 3G grew by 5.5 percent to 6.49 million subscribers as at 31 March 2012 with 98.8 percent of the total internet subscriptions being from mobile data subscription.

Broadband, which is 10 percent of data subscriptions increased to 651,738 up from 131,829 subscriptions recorded last quarter.

Mobile phone-based money transfer services rose to a subscription of 18.987 million with the total deposits handled during the quarter growing by 4.8 percent to 185.4 billion shillings.

For more information, visit CCK’s 2011/2012 SectorStatistics Report