Kenyans transacted money worth Ksh 1.65 trillion on their mobile phones during the first quarter of 2017/18, latest statistics from the Communications Authority (CA) show. CA’s report says a total of 537.2 million transactions (sending and withdrawals) were made during the period.
The period also saw 352.4 million mobile commerce transactions made with Ksh
714.3 billion spent in buying goods and services. The person to person transfers amounted to Ksh 544.1 billion.
During the period under review, the number of active mobile money transfer subscriptions and
agents stood at 28.1 million and 184,537 respectively.
M-Pesa services posted a market share of 80.8% during the quarter under review. Equitel Money posted a market share of 6.8% while Mobikash stood at 6.3%. Airtel Money and Mobile Pay Limited attained 5.8 and 0.3% market shares respectively.
During the quarter under review, the total volume of traffic originating from mobile networks
was 11.0 billion minutes up from 10.6 billion minutes recorded during the previous period. The
intra-network mobile traffic rose by 4.0% to register 9.9 billion minutes from 9.5 billion
minutes recorded in the previous period.
Similarly, traffic originating from own mobile networks to other mobile networks increased by
3.5% to post 1.14 billion minutes from 1.10 billion minutes reported in the preceding
quarter.
Mobile to fixed traffic increased to 23.0 million minutes during the quarter from 22.2 million
minutes reported in the previous period. Equally, fixed to mobile traffic rose by 1.8% to
register 11.0 million minutes from last quarter’s 10.8 million minutes.
Safaricom Limited recorded a total of 8.5 billion voice traffic minutes during the period under
review with on-net and off-net traffic reported at 8.1 billion and 310.8 million minutes
respectively. Despite the increase in voice traffic, its voice market share declined by 2.7
percentage points to stand at 76.9%.
Airtel Networks Limited’s mobile voice traffic rose to 1.9 billion minutes from 1.5 billion
minutes registered during the previous quarter. Equally the operator’s voice market share
increased to 17.4% from last quarter’s 14.4%.
Telkom Kenya Limited recorded a marginal decline of 1.5% in mobile voice traffic during
the quarter under review to post 589.8 million minutes from 599.1 million reported in the
previous quarter. Subsequently, its voice market share dropped to 5.3% from 5.6%.
Finserve Africa Limited registered a total of 40.4 million minutes during the period under review
representing a 9.4% decrease when compared to 44.6 million minutes recorded in the
previous quarter. Its market share stood at 0.4%.
The total mobile voice traffic reported by Mobile Pay Limited during the quarter was 30,073
minutes up from 29,508 minutes recorded during the previous period while Sema Mobile
Services posted a total of 39,255 minutes. Their voice market share stood at 0.0%.
Safaricom Limited recorded a total of 18.7 billion messages originating from its network. The
on-net and off-net messages were reported at 18.5 billion and 169.9 million respectively. Its
SMS market share stood at 97.0% up from 95.9% recorded in the previous quarter.
The volume of messages sent from Airtel Networks Limited network was 495.2 million
messages down from 543.2 million recorded in the previous quarter. Consequently, its SMS
market share dropped to 2.6% during the period under review from 3.6% recorded
last quarter.
Telkom Kenya Limited reported a total of 66.7 million messages sent on its network during the
period under review down from 68.1 million messages recorded in the previous quarter. It’s SMS
market share declined by 0.1 percentage points to stand at 0.3%.
Finserve Africa Limited registered 8.3 million outgoing messages during the period under review
down from 9.1 million messages reported during the previous quarter. Its SMS market share
stood at 0.0%.
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respectively. Their SMS market share stood at 0.0%.
During the quarter under review, the market share for Safaricom Kenya Limited in mobile
data/Internet subscriptions stood at 76.0%.
Airtel Networks Limited recorded a market share of 15.7% while Telkom Kenya Limited posted a market share of 7.3%.
Finserve Africa Limited and Mobile pay Limited market share stood at 0.7% and 0.3% respectively. The market share for Sema Mobile Services remained unchanged at 0.0%.
