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 41 million by early 2018. Some market consolidation occurred following the acquisition by Airtel and Safaricom of Essar Telecom’s yuMobile business. 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 market dominance, however, encouraged the government to consider, and later dismiss, recommendations from a 2016 report 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.

A number of MVNO licences awarded since 2014 have added to the competitive mix, with Equitel establishing a market share of about 4.6% by late 2017.

Key developments:

Another 600,000 SIM cards deactivated;
Telkom Kenya launches T-Kash m-money platform;
Government proposes increase in m-money transfer tax;
Regulator preps for auction of two remaining licences for 700MHz spectrum;
M-money interoperability starts;
Airtel Kenya pays $25 million for its 800MHz concession to provide LTE services;
M-Tiba mobile health payment platform launched;
Regulator rejects proposal for Safaricom’s M-PESA service to be split off from voice and data services;
One Network Area initiative expands to include mobile data and mobile money services;
Report update includes the regulator’s market data to March 2018, telcos’ operating and financial data to Q1 2018, 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

1. Synopsis
2. Overview of Kenya’s mobile market
- 2.1 General statistics
- 2.2 Mobile data
  - 2.2.1 SMS
  - 2.2.2 MMS
- 2.3 Mobile broadband
- 2.4 Forecasts - mobile subscribers – 2019; 2021; 2023
3. Regulatory issues
- 3.1 Roaming
- 3.2 Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs)
- 3.3 International gateways
- 3.4 Spectrum
- 3.5 Mobile Number Portability (MNP)
- 3.6 Network sharing
- 3.7 Quality of Service (QoS)
- 3.8 SIM card registration
- 3.9 Taxes
- 3.10 Tariff regulation
4. Mobile infrastructure
- 4.1 Analogue networks
- 4.2 Digital networks
  - 4.2.1 Global System for Mobiles (GSM)
  - 4.2.2 UMTS (3G)
  - 4.2.3 Long-term Evolution (LTE)
- 4.3 Satellite mobile
5. Major mobile operators
- 5.1 Mobile market shares
- 5.2 Safaricom
  - 5.2.1 Privatisation and IPO
- 5.3 Airtel Kenya (formerly Zain, Celtel, KenCell)
- 5.4 Essar Telecom Kenya (yuMobile, formerly Econet)
- 5.5 Telkom Kenya
- 5.6 Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
6. Mobile content and applications
- 6.1 Mobile money transfer, m-banking
  - 6.1.1 M-PESA (Safaricom)
  - 6.1.2 Airtel Money (ZAP)
  - 6.1.3 yuCash (Essar)
  - 6.1.4 T-Kash (Telkom Money
  - 6.1.5 Equity Money
- 6.2 PesaLink
  - 6.2.1 Other services
- 6.3 M-medicine
- 6.4 Satellite mobile
7. Handsets
8. Related reports

Table 1 – Mobile services revenue and investments – 2009- 2017
Table 2 –Mobile traffic share by operator – 2014 - 2018
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- 2018
Table 6 – SMS traffic – 2012 - 2018
Table 7 – MMS traffic – 2012 - 2015
Table 8 – Mobile internet subscribers by provider – 2013 - 2017
Table 9 – Mobile internet market share by provider – 2014 - 2017
Table 10 – Active mobile broadband subscribers – 2010 - 2018
Table 11 – Mobile data subscribers – 2015 - 2017
Table 12 – Forecast mobile subscribers – 2019; 2021; 2023
Table 13 – Annual mobile number portings – 2013- 2018
Table 14 – 2G Mobile base stations by operator – 2012- 2016
Table 15 – 3G Mobile base stations by operator – 2012- 2016
Table 16 – Market share of subscribers by operator – 2010 – 2018
Table 17 – Safaricom revenue – 2011 - 2018
Table 18 – Safaricom revenue by sector – 2010 - 2018
Table 19 – Safaricom - proportion of service revenue by sector – 2014 - 2018
Table 20 – Safaricom subscribers – 2010 - 2018
Table 21 – Safaricom base stations by technology – 2013 - 2017
Table 22 – Airtel Kenya subscribers – 2010 - 2018
Table 23 – Historic - Essar Telecom subscribers – 2010 - 2014
Table 24 – Telkom Kenya revenue – 2010 - 2014
Table 25 – Telkom Kenya mobile subscribers – 2011 - 2018
Table 26 – Finserve mobile subscribers – 2014 - 2018
Table 27 – Mobile money transfer statistics – 2011 - 2018
Table 28 – Mobile money subscribers by operator – 2014 - 2018
Table 29 – Safaricom - M-PESA revenue – 2008 - 2018
Table 30 – Safaricom – active M-PESA customers – 2012 - 2017
Table 31 – Safaricom –M-PESA transactions value by type – 2011 - 2017

Chart 1 - Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya – 2005 – 2018
Chart 2 – Prepaid and contract mobile subscribers – 2014- 2018
Chart 3 – Market share of subscribers by operator – 2010 – 2018

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

Related Reports

Purchase this Report

US$550.00

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 38

Status Current

Last updated 25 Sep 2018
Update History

Analyst: Henry Lancaster

Share this Report

Purchase with Confidence

We wanted to extend our Com World Series of telecoms industry events to the South Pacific region and we were in urgent need of a partner in the region who could assist us with confirming the involvement of governments, telcos and more. Paul Budde and his team executed this perfectly. Paul also provided us with very high quality reports on every aspect of the project, including an amazingly thorough and actionable report on the conference presentations and discussion.

Joe Willcox, Commercial Content Director, Emap Connect, Emap

Special Offers

Middle East - Mobile Infrastructure and Mobile Broadband
US$1,000.00 until 27 Feb 2019
(normal price US$2,000.00)

Kuwait - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses
US$370.00 until 27 Feb 2019
(normal price US$750.00)

Sample Reports

A selection of downloadable samples from our Annual Publications catalogue.

Download a Sample Report

More than 4,000 customers from 140 countries utilise BuddeComm Research

Are you interested in BuddeComm's Custom Research Service?

Contact us

Contact BuddeComm

View Reports by

Hot Topics

News & Views

Have the latest telecommunications industry news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to Paul's FREE weekly News & Views.