The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) released its pointers and projections based on the activities of the first quarter of the 2017/2018 Financial Year before the end of 2017. The report, as any other earlier release, summarizes ICT practices in the country.
One of the key gains that was noted by the CA was a jump in mobile phone subscriptions, which has been the case quarter after quarter. Save for Airtel Kenya’s slight drop (1.2 percent, which translates to 6.10 million subscribers from 6.17 million), other carriers registered a growth, including Telkom Kenya that gained more than 600,000 users, as well as Safaricom (up by 200,000) and Finserve Africa Limited (Equitel) with a 2.3 percent rise from 1.8 million subscriptions to 1.9 million subscriptions.
While Airtel Kenya’s subscriptions dipped, its attempts in offering the best value for money have been recognized by the Consumer Downtown Association and the CA. It is an open secret that the Indian-owned telco is going through tough times, including a series of legal tussles with the CA regarding its operation licenses (that is probably part of the reason its LTE roll out continues to be pushed forward after testing it for an extensive period), as well as possible rumours of a local exit due to its financial woes – a statement that has since been ruled out.
That said, Airtel won two awards; one for consistently offering low call rates across all networks, and the best marketing campaign.
On the other hand, Telkom Kenya bagged the most affordable internet plans award. The third largest mobile operator in the country has, to say the least, spun its mobile data packages into multiple offerings that it is highly unlikely to miss a plan that meets any user’s needs. We have covered most of these data options on this site, and the carrier has promised to keep offering intermittent deals in the future.
The awards were staged before end of 2017. They also recognized the deployment of key infrastructure, such as Telkom’s Metro Fibre Network upgrade.
