According to Kenya’s Communications Authority (CA), the East African nation recorded a total of 39.15 million mobile subscribers at 31 March 2017, an increase of 2.0% from 38.37 million twelve months earlier. Safaricom accounted for the majority of total wireless customers (28.13 million) at the end of Q1 2017, followed by Airtel Kenya with 6.39 million and Telkom Kenya with 2.80 million. The market’s three MVNOs, Finserve Africa (Equitel), Sema Mobile and new entrant Mobile Pay, which launched in the first three months of 2017, accounted for 1.73 million, 295 and 86,724 customers, respectively. Mobile data subscriptions rose from 24.71 million at 31 March 2016 to 25.52 million twelve months later, with growth attributed to the increased affordability of smartphones and data bundles offered by service providers. Safaricom accounted for 74.9% of total mobile data subscriptions, followed by Airtel with 18.1%, Telkom with 6.0% and Finserve Africa (Equitel) with 0.7%.
The CA reported 183,194 fixed broadband subscribers at 31 March 2017 (an increase of 31.3% from 139,514 a year earlier), including 95,976 cable modem internet users, 48,040 fibre-optic connections, 36,104 fixed-wireless data accesses, 2,452 DSL users and 622 satellite customers. Kenya ended the period under review with a total of 72,259 fixed line and fixed-wireless telephony lines in service, a decrease of 12.4% from 82,458 at the end of March 2016.