5G Users Increase in Kenya

There has been positive growth in terms of subscriptions especially 5G in the country according to recent data from the telecommunications regulatory body, CA Kenya.

Second quarter sector statistics report financial year 2023/2024 shows significant growth across the board – from data and internet subscriptions, traffic and international bandwidth. This period also saw decreased mobile subscriptions which we’ll get to below.

5G mobile data subscriptions went from 509,737 users to 586,684 users. This is impressive growth in alignment with forecasted numbers regarding 5G adoption in the country. The increase reflects Kenyan telco’s efforts to expand 5G coverage, making 5G bundles and devices – both smartphones and routers affordable.

Kenya also has three networks that offer 5G services across the country including Safaricom, Airtel and recently, Equitel.

Safaricom was the first one to bring 5G in the country in October 2022 after months of testing and is now available in 35 counties nationwide including Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi to Marsabit county.

Airtel rolled out their 5G network in July last year and expanded to 32 counties in Kenya.

Equitel launched their 5G network late last month and is available across 370 locations from the coast, the lakeside and the north rift. Equitel 5G is accessible in Mombasa, Nairobi, Athi River, Kisumu, Kakamega, Bungoma, Eldoret and Siaya. Equitel has said that they will be expanding their 5G network to residential areas, shopping centres and central business districts.

Device manufacturers in partnership with chip makers and telcos have also been working to launch affordable 5G smartphones such as the Redmi Note 13 Pro series, the OPPO Reno11 series, the Vivo V29 series, the Infinix Note 30 VIP, and the TECNO Camon 20 Pro series.

OPPO Reno11 Series — OPPO Reno11 5G Series

Safaricom not only cut the prices of their 5G wireless routers by 60% but also made their 5G data bundles even more affordable. The routers now cost Ksh 9,999 with 5G WiFi for Home Consumer starting at Ksh 3.499 for the 400GB bundle while the unlimited 5G WiFi for Business starts at Ksh 4,000(10Mbps).

Airtel 5G data bundles start from as low as Ksh 3000 per month for the 10GB a day for home subscribers. 5G Unlimited business packages start from Ksh 3500(10Mbps) going all the way to Ksh 7500(50Mbps) per month. Their 5G router is still available for Ksh 10,000.

4G subscriptions also rose from 23.9 million subscriptions to 26.2 million subscriptions while 3G subscriptions declined to 9.7 million from 10.2 million. It’s no surprise since the number of smartphones also increased from 32.6 million to 33.6 million.

Why Kenya Has More Smartphone Users Than Feature Phone Users

The number of feature phones decreased from 32 million to 31.8 million.

While the growth in terms of of 5G users is commendable, it is still behind in Africa, coming in third after South Africa and Nigeria with their 5 million and 1.8 million subscriptions respectively.

Deep Dive

There’s a strong demand for high-speed connectivity, especially with the youth who are data-hungry when it comes to consuming multimedia content(video streaming, music, gaming, live sports, cloud storage), mobile and cloud-based gaming.

5G rollout has had its challenges too including limited 5G network coverage, and the high cost of 5G devices and most of them are satisfied with the previous 4G and 3G networks.

The future is looking bright as mobile operators and enterprises are working together to unlock 5G’s superior capabilities. There’s a sizeable market opportunity which heavily depends on policies that enable network investments which include regulators availing more spectrum for faster 5G adoption.

It is still imperative for Africa to keep up with the global 5G adoption which can be done using the phased approach which is a sustainable way to ensure consumers and enterprises enjoy enhanced connectivity.

Scaling 5G across Africa will still need collaborations between stakeholders which includes cost-effective network deployment, partnerships between consumers and enterprises to bring relevant localized use cases, and coming up with programs that make 5G devices more affordable for the mass market.

Other Interesting Numbers

As pointed out above, mobile data subscriptions grew to 51 million from 49.3 million. Mobile broadband subscriptions increased to 36.5 million from 34.6 million.
Mobile voice traffic minutes(on-net) also rose to 20.2 billion from 19.1 billion while off-net surged to 3.3 billion from 3.1 billion
Utilization of undersea bandwidth soared to 10,995.452 Gbps out of which 8,041.632 Gbps was used in the country and 2,953.820 Gbps sold outside the country
The total available Internet bandwidth capacity in the country dropped to 17,293.743 Gbps from 17,353.722 Gbps
4G mobile coverage is at 97% while 2G and 3G at 98%.
Safaricom is still king in terms of mobile(SIM) subscriptions at 65.9% while Airel, Telkom, Finserve and JTL follow closely at 29%, 2%, 2.3% and 0.7% respectively.
MPESA still leads when it comes to mobile money services at 97.1% with Airtel Money ranking in second at 2.9%
mobile(SIM) subscriptions dropped to 66.7 million from 67.1 million due to high churn vis-a-vis acquisitions especially concerning Telkom Kenya which also led to peneration rate decline by 0.8%
JTL mobile subscriptions rose from 456.3K to 498K while Airtel rose from 18.9 million to 19.4 subscriptions.
Safaricom, Telkom and Equitel reported declines. Safaricom decreased from 44.1 million to 44 million subscriptions, Telkom nosedived from 2.1 million to 1.3 million subscriptions while Equitel dropped from 1.51 million to 1.5 million subscriptions.

5G Users Increase in Kenya

Deep Dive

Other Interesting Numbers

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