Kenya - Mobile Infrastructure, Operators and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

Kenya’s mobile market has continued to grow steadily, supported by a mobile subscriber base of about 47 million. Some market consolidation occurred following the acquisition by Airtel and Safaricom of Essar Telecom’s yuMobile business. More significantly, in February 2019 Airtel Kenya and Telkom Kenya signed an agreement to merge their networks and operate under the Airtel-Telekom joint venture which will be 49% owned by Telekom Kenya. The merge units will provide a greater challenge to the market dominance of Safaricom.

While all network operators have invested in mobile technologies and infrastructure upgrades to support mobile data services, competition has nevertheless presented challenges to their profitability, with uneven revenue growth reported in recent years. Orange Group was the principal casualty of competition, leading it to sell its stake in Telkom Kenya. By contrast, Safaricom has seen very strong growth on the back of its popular M-PESA payment platform. This dominance encouraged the government to consider, and later dismiss, recommendations that Safaricom split off its M-PESA business from its voice and data offerings.

To encourage the development of LTE services the government has pursued an open-access approach. Disputes centered on licence fees delayed the launch of LTE services by MNOs, though they continued to invest in infrastructure and technology upgrades using trial licences.

Key developments:

Telkom Kenya and Airtel Kenya sign merger agreement;
Parliament proposes splitting of m-banking services from MNOs;
Safaricom launches M-PESA Global payment service;
Government proposes increase in m-money transfer tax;
Regulator introduces a new system to measure QoS parameters;
M-money interoperability starts;
Airtel Kenya pays $25 million for its 800MHz concession to provide LTE services;
M-Tiba mobile health payment platform launched;
One Network Area initiative expands to include mobile data and mobile money services;
Report update includes the regulator’s market data to March 2019, m-money data to May 2019, telcos’ operating and financial data to Q1 2019, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Safaricom, Bharti Airtel (formerly Zain, Celtel), Essar Telkom Kenya, Huawei Technologies, ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Networks, Mobile Pay (Tangaza Pesa), Zioncell Kenya, Finserve Africa (Equitel)

Table of Contents

Overview of Kenya’s mobile market

General statistics
Mobile voice
Mobile data

Mobile broadband
Forecasts - mobile subscribers – 2019; 2021; 2023

Regulatory issues

Roaming
Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs)
International gateways
Spectrum
Mobile Number Portability (MNP)
Network sharing
Quality of Service (QoS)
SIM card registration
Taxes
Tariff regulation

Mobile infrastructure

Analogue networks
4G (LTE)

3G
GSM
Internet of Things (IoT)
Satellite mobile

Major mobile operators

Mobile market share by operator
Safaricom

Privatisation and IPO

Airtel Kenya (formerly Zain, Celtel, KenCell)
Essar Telecom Kenya (yuMobile, formerly Econet)
Telkom Kenya
Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)

Mobile content and applications

Mobile money transfer, m-banking

M-PESA (Safaricom)
Airtel Money (ZAP)
yuCash (Essar)
T-Kash (Telkom Money)
Equity Money
PesaLink
Other services

M-medicine

Handsets
Related reports

List of Tables

Table 1 – Mobile services revenue and investments – 2009- 2017
Table 2 – Mobile traffic share by operator – 2014 – 2019
Table 3 – Historic - Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya – 1999 – 2009
Table 4 – Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya – 2010 – 2018
Table 5 – Prepaid and contract mobile subscribers – 2014- 2019
Table 6 – SMS traffic by quarter – 2012 – 2019
Table 7 – SMS domestic annual traffic – 2008 – 2019
Table 8 – MMS traffic – 2012 – 2015
Table 9 – Mobile internet subscribers by provider – 2013 – 2017
Table 10 – Mobile internet market share by provider – 2014 – 2018
Table 11 – Active mobile broadband subscribers – 2010 – 2018
Table 12 – Mobile data subscribers – 2015 – 2019
Table 13 – Forecast mobile subscribers – 2019; 2021; 2023
Table 14 – Annual mobile number portings – 2013- 2019
Table 15 – 2G Mobile base stations by operator – 2012- 2017
Table 16 – 3G Mobile base stations by operator – 2012- 2017
Table 17 – Market share of subscribers by operator – 2010 – 2019
Table 18 – Safaricom revenue – 2011 – 2019
Table 19 – Safaricom revenue by sector – 2010 – 2019
Table 20 – Safaricom - proportion of service revenue by sector – 2014 – 2019
Table 21 – Safaricom subscribers – 2010 – 2019
Table 22 – Safaricom mobile ARPU by platform – 2018 – 2019
Table 23 – Safaricom base stations by technology – 2013 – 2019
Table 24 – Airtel Kenya subscribers – 2010 – 2019
Table 25 – Historic - Essar Telecom subscribers – 2010 – 2014
Table 26 – Telkom Kenya revenue – 2010 – 2014
Table 27 – Telkom Kenya mobile subscribers – 2011 – 2019
Table 28 – Finserve Africa mobile subscribers – 2014 – 2019
Table 29 – Mobile Pay mobile subscribers – 2018 – 2019
Table 30 – Mobile money penetration rate – 2013 – 2018
Table 31 – Mobile money transfer statistics – 2011 – 2019
Table 32 – Mobile money subscribers by operator – 2014 – 2019
Table 33 – Mobile money value and transactions – 2008 – 2019
Table 34 – Safaricom - M-PESA revenue – 2008 – 2019
Table 35 – Safaricom – active M-PESA customers – 2012 – 2019
Table 36 – Safaricom –M-PESA transactions value by type – 2011 – 2018

List of Charts

Chart 1 – Mobile traffic share by operator – 2014 – 2019
Chart 2 – Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya – 2005 – 2019
Chart 3 – Prepaid and contract mobile subscribers – 2014- 2019
Chart 4 – Active mobile broadband subscribers – 2010 – 2018
Chart 5 – Market share of subscribers by operator – 2010 – 2019
Chart 6 – Safaricom revenue – 2011 – 2019
Chart 7 – Safaricom revenue by sector – 2010 – 2019
Chart 8 – Safaricom - proportion of service revenue by sector – 2014 – 2019
Chart 9 – Safaricom –M-PESA transactions value by type – 2011 – 2018

List of Exhibits

Exhibit 1 – Texting elephants
Exhibit 2 – Job offers by SMS

Related Reports

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Licence Information

Focus Report Profile

Technologies

Companies (Major Players)
Digital Media
Internet
Mobile & Wireless Broadband and Media
Mobile Communications (voice and infrastructure)
Regulations & Government Policies
Strategies & Analyses (Industry & Markets)
Telecoms Infrastructure

Number of pages 71

Status Current

Last updated 3 Jul 2019
Update History

Analyst: Henry Lancaster

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