Kenya’s ICT watchdog the Communications Authority (CA) released sector statistics for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2017/2018. As usual, the report highlights the performance and trends of the communication sector in the country. Owing to the dynamic nature of the industry, the CA releases quarterly reports based on mobile, data and postal courier services, to mention a few.
So here is a summary of how much growth Telkom Kenya has undergone regarding mobile subscriptions, internet subscriptions and its stand in the fiercely competitive mobile money market.
Mobile Subscriptions
Quite recently, Telkom Kenya’s Managing Director, Mobile Division Amer Atwi revealed that the telco is embarking on hitting the 5-million mark in terms of active subscribers. This means that the carrier already has 4 million active users or thereabouts.
CA’s report, however, reports the stats based on June 2018 data. Either way, the Authority gives the exact numbers for those who are interested in details.
The numbers rose by 0.2 percent from the previous quarter to 3,995,365. While growth was minimal, it demonstrates the milestones made by a telco that is trying to appeal to young people with a sea of data-centric products.
Mobile Money Services
It has been almost six months since Telkom launched its mobile money services. Dubbed T-Kash, the product was apparently late to the market, but its entrance, alongside Airtel’s and other fintech-based firms, has pioneered important developments, including the recently launched mobile money interoperability that is even more attractive for T-Kash and M-PESA users.
The CA report indicates that by June 2018, T-Kash had 16,554 agents, which is not impressive considering M-PESA has ten times that number. Out of 4 million subscribers, T-Kash has 63,023 users who actively use the service. The value of transactions moved so far stands at KES 118,024,097 that is cannibalized by billions of shillings transacted by Equitel Money and Airtel Money.
By the way, we have since reached out to Telkom and have confirmed that T-Kash is available on STK for their new SIM cards. Older SIMs are still stuck on USSD.
Mobile Data Subscriptions
This is the only segment that registered a drop. The market share of Telkom Kenya’s for internet subscriptions for the quarter under review dropped by 0.4 percent to stand at 7.2%. Airtel’s declined too, and while Safaricom reported a decline in mobile subscriptions, it gained a 1.1 percent in this segment.
For fixed data subscriptions (Telkom actively pushes fiber-to-the-building model for businesses), Telkom’s cut is still low at 1.1% in market share that features Wananchi Companies, Safaricom and Mawingu Networks at top three.
