The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has a very interesting report for the second quarter of 2008/2009.
It is during this period that Telkom Kenya (read Orange) and Econet Wireless (read Yu) started rolling out their services in September and November 2008 respectively, bringing to four the number of licensed mobile operators in Kenya. This has led to expectations that the completion will lead to reduced costs, which it has and this is a story for another day.
There was increased mobile phone subscription of 11.9% between October and December 2008, and this is attributed to the entrance of the two mobile operators.
Indicator | Dec-07 | Dec-08 | Change (%) |
Number of mobile subscribers | 11,349,412 | 16,233,833 | 43.04 |
Mobile Penetration (%) | 28.97 | 43.64 | 50.64 |
Source: CCK database
Again, the increase in mobile penetration was attributed to the increase in the number of mobile operators, increased mobile coverage and availability of low denomination calling cards, as low as Ksh. 20 (USD 0.25) introduced by both Safaricom and Zain.
In terms of mobile traffic there are quite a number of facts interesting to look at:
Indicator | Jul-Sep 07 | Sep-Dec 08 | Change (%) |
Mobile to fixed traffic (Minutes) | 5,799,400 | 9,778,341 | 68.6 |
Local mobile traffic | 680,792,168 | 2,606, 590,177 | 282.88 |
Local SMSes sent | 670,192,766 | 361,862,632 | -46.01 |
Approximate number of data users (GPRS/EDGE, HSPDA, EVDO) | 388,199 | 392,964 | 1.23 |
What is interesting to note was the effect Safaricom had on the statistics simply by offering free call promotion during September to December 2008 period. This saw an increase of 68.6% in mobile to fixed traffic and similarly a 282.88%in local mobile traffic, hence the reduction in the number of local smses sent. The interesting point to note is that the mobile telephony sector has spawned mobile Internet users to stand at 392,964 as at December 2008. It would be again be interesting to see how the numbers change towards the end of 2009, with Orange and Zain having promotions of the Internet modems from zero cost to Ksh. 5,000 (USD 62.50) on prepaid basis, with per minutes rates at USD 0.0125 to USD 0.0375 per KB downloaded.
Source: CCK database
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