Kenya’s mobile subscriber base grew by 0.02% in Q4 2013 reaching 31.309 million. Post-paid subscriptions grew 22.9% in the same period to 560,503. Pre-paid subscription accounts for 98.2% of the mobile user market despite a 1.2% decline. The country’s mobile penetration rate stands at 76.9%.
At 67.9% market share, Safaricom’s subscriptions increased by 1.2%. Telkom Kenya follows with 0.4% growth recorded in Q4. Pre-paid subscriptions are down 1.2% to 30.7 million from 30.8 million. Next to the market’s performance in 2012, this accounts for a 1% increase. CCK reports a slump in per quarter growth of mobile subscriptions with less than 2% increase recorded on average over the last 2 years.
We are yet to see the impact of the exit of Yumobile in the market as it’s a well known fact that most subscribers of the ailing telco are also subscribers of either of the other three players in the industry. Airtel is expected to buy in into the subscribers of Yumobile as it exits the market. This naturally would mean a certain number who already own subscriptions with the other telcos might drop one SIM card.
Again, the entry of Mobile Value Added Networks (MVNOs) in Kenya is bound to change the numbers with Equity Bank said to commit at least 300,000 SIM cards for mobile money activation in the first round.