According to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), the East African nation ended 2016 with a total of 38.98 million mobile subscribers, an increase of 3.4% from 37.71 million twelve months earlier. Safaricom accounted for the majority of total wireless customers (27.74 million) at end-December 2016, followed by Airtel Kenya with 6.85 million and Telkom Kenya with 2.89 million. The market’s two MVNOs, Finserve Africa (Equitel) and Sema Mobile, accounted for 1.49 million and 270 customers, respectively. Mobile data subscriptions rose from 23.79 million at the end of 2015 to 26.52 million twelve months later, with growth attributed to the increased affordability of smartphones and data bundles offered by service providers. Safaricom accounted for 67.5% of total mobile data subscriptions, followed by Airtel with 19.7%, Telkom with 7.1% and Finserve Africa (Equitel) with 5.6%.
The CA reported 158,185 fixed internet subscribers at 31 December 2016 (an increase of 17.1% from 135,107 a year earlier), including 86,139 cable modem internet users, 39,255 fibre-optic connections, 29,724 fixed-wireless data accesses, 2,483 DSL users and 584 satellite customers. Kenya ended the period under review with a total of 72,801 fixed line and fixed-wireless telephony lines in service, a decrease of 14.8% from 85,496 at the end of 2015.