Safaricom Adds 35 Times More Subs than Zuku in Q1, Maintains Top Spot in Fixed Data Market

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safaricom fiber

Safaricom has firmly secured the top spot in the fixed data market in a new Communications Authority report of the industry.

The Sector Statistics Q1 2020-2021 that track industry events between July and September 2020 was released recently and it reveals the surge in fixed data subscriptions in the country.

Safaricom maintained the top spot in the fixed data market in Q1 2020-2021 with a total of 229,406 subscriptions that represented a market share of 35.6%. They added a net of 22,008 subscribers in the quarter which is impressive but not as impressive as the amount they added the previous quarter.

Their biggest competitor Wananchi Group maintained second place with 202,237 subscriptions which is 31.4% of the market. They added a net of only 632 subscribers during the same period which is quite concerning for the major player. That is 35 times less what Safaricom added in the same period.

Jamii Telecommunications (JTL) is third on the list with 127,914 subscribers (19.8% of the market) which is up an impressive 9,421. Mawingu Networks, Internet Solutions, Telkom Kenya, Frontier Optical Networks and MTN completed the list in that order.

In general, there are 644,816 fixed data subscriptions as of September 2020 which is up from 619,579 subscribers posted the previous quarter. A majority of these are fiber to the home/office (FTTH/O) subscribers (373,835) who comprise 58% of the total.

In addition and not surprising at all, the majority of fixed data subscribers in Kenya are in the 2Mbps to 10Mbps category (373,087), followed by 10Mbps to 30Mbps (120,112) and the 30Mbps to 100Mbps (117,940).

The CA also notes that there was an increase in Kenya’s total undersea bandwidth capacity where it rose by 6.5% to 7.87552 Tbps up from 7.39296 Tbps posted last year. This was thanks to the EASSy cable and Lion 2 cable increased capacity during the reference period in anticipation for increased demand due to COVID-19.