Kenya’s fixed internet market has a new undisputed leader.
According to nPerf’s annual barometer covering April 2025 to March 2026, Faiba finished first overall among the five major providers measured (Airtel, Faiba, Safaricom, VGG Connect, and Zuku), pulling away from the competition more convincingly than in any previous year.
Faiba’s overall nPerf score jumped from 53,975 to 67,150, a gap wide enough that no other operator came close.
More notably, Faiba ranked first in every single measured category except one: download speed at 62.68 Mb/s (up 89% year-on-year), upload speed at 44.42 Mb/s, web browsing performance at 44.78%, and YouTube streaming at 69.47%.
Sweeping all categories in a single cycle is a first for the operator.
VGG Connect held second place overall with a score of 59,321, though this was actually a small drop from its previous first-place score of 60,566.
What keeps VGG Connect firmly on the podium is its latency. At 14.20 ms, it is the lowest in the sector for the fifth consecutive year and down from 18.36 ms the year prior.
That said, its download speed of 21.36 Mb/s and upload of 21.49 Mb/s remain the weakest among the five providers, which limits how high it can climb overall.
Safaricom held third place with a score of 55,978, up from 51,709. Its upload speed improved by 25% to 26.82 Mb/s, and it posted solid streaming numbers at 67.95%.
Nothing dramatic, but the direction is consistently upward, as the report notes Safaricom has shown continuous score growth over five years.
Zuku came fourth at 53,181, up slightly from 51,394. Its standout number this year was download speed, which grew 39% to reach 35.35 Mb/s, placing it second in that specific category behind Faiba. Upload (30.02 Mb/s) and latency (42.14 ms) are decent but unremarkable.
Airtel came last with a score of 41,438, though even that represents some improvement from 36,022 the year before. The headline number for Airtel is upload speed, which jumped 61% to 22.56 Mb/s, the biggest upload improvement of any operator this cycle.
The problem is that Airtel also has the worst latency in the group at 50.15 ms, and its download speed of 21.03 Mb/s and browsing score of 34.72% remain the lowest in the sector. The upload recovery is real progress, but there’s a lot of ground still to cover.
On Wi-Fi specifically, the picture is largely the same: Faiba leads overall with a Wi-Fi nPerf score of 65,204, ahead of VGG Connect (56,390), Safaricom (55,014), Zuku (44,981), and Airtel (32,167). VGG Connect again holds the best Wi-Fi latency at 14.20 ms.
One practical note on the data is that nPerf only includes providers with a test share above 5%, and the distribution is heavily skewed toward Safaricom, which accounts for 41% of all tests. Faiba accounts for 12%, Airtel 18%, VGG Connect 22%, and Zuku 7%.
The methodology uses both busy hours (ranging from 6 to 11 PM) and idle hours to capture how performance holds up under load, which is arguably more useful than off-peak numbers alone.
The overall picture for Kenya’s fixed broadband market is positive. All five operators improved their scores year-on-year, which suggests the competitive pressure is working.
Now, the main question going into the next cycle is whether anyone can close the gap with Faiba, which at this point is not just leading but pulling away.
