The Communications Authority of Kenya released its sector statistics for Q3 of the 2025/2026 financial year (January to March 2026), revealing that Kenya now has 84.1 million active mobile subscriptions, up 7.4% from the previous quarter.
That puts mobile penetration at 157.7%, meaning there are more active SIM cards than there are people in the country.
Most of that growth came from Safaricom. The telco added roughly 5.5 million new subscriptions in a single quarter, bringing its total to 57.9 million and its market share to 68.9%.
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For context, Safaricom now holds more subscribers than Kenya’s entire estimated population did a decade ago. The company is within striking distance of the 60 million subscriber mark, which would be a remarkable milestone for a single operator in one country.
The CA credited the growth largely to win-back campaigns run by operators during the quarter, alongside cheaper devices, better network infrastructure, and the reality that mobile services have become essential for daily economic and social life in Kenya.
The feature phone is quietly dying too as smartphones now make up 63.7% of all handsets connected to networks.
READ: Kenya Now Has 93 Smartphones for Every 100 Phones as Feature Phones Decline
Airtel sits in a distant second place with 23.2 million subscribers and a 27.6% market share. The gap between Safaricom and Airtel is not narrowing in any meaningful way.
Equitel (Finserve) and Faiba (Jamii Telecommunications) hold 1.8% and 1.1%, respectively, tiny slices but stable ones.
Telkom Kenya is a different story. The operator lost 160,464 subscribers in the quarter, closing at just 584,438, which translates to 0.7% of the market. Telkom has been bleeding subscribers for some time now, and this quarter did nothing to reverse that trend.
On mobile broadband, Kenya had 62.6 million subscriptions as of March 31, 2026. Safaricom leads here too with 62.7% of the market, though that is actually down from 64.3% the previous quarter, a small but notable dip worth watching.
In fixed data, the competitive landscape looks different. Safaricom still leads with 35.4% market share, but challengers are more visible here.
Jamii Telecommunications holds 19.5%, Wananchi Group 10.4%, and Poa Internet Kenya 9.7%. Ahadi Wireless, Vilcom Network, and Mawingu Networks collectively serve another meaningful chunk. Starlink sits at 0.9%, a relatively small number for now, but one that will likely grow.
READ: Faiba Tops Kenya’s Fixed Internet Rankings But VGG Connect Still Wins on Speed
Mobile money tells perhaps the most lopsided story of all. Safaricom controls 89.1% of mobile money subscriptions, with the segment totaling 53.4 million active subscriptions.
That level of dominance in a financial service used by tens of millions of Kenyans is the kind of number regulators anywhere in the world tend to pay close attention to.
Voice traffic follows a similar pattern: Safaricom carries 64.96% of domestic calls, Airtel 34.88%, and the remaining three operators share less than 0.2% between them. SMS is even more extreme, with Safaricom accounting for 93.96% of all messages sent.
The overall picture is a market growing fast, driven by smartphones, cheaper data, and essential services moving online. However, it is also a market where one operator keeps pulling further ahead across nearly every segment.
