Kenyans made a total of 810.9 million transactions valued at Ksh2.1 trillion in a period of three months between April and June, the latest sector report has revealed.
According to the report by the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA), a total of 591.1
million transactions valued at Ksh1.9 trillion were made through the mobile payment platforms
(Paybill and Till Numbers) while person-to-person transfers were valued at Ksh.770.9 billion.
According to the report, the cumulative voice traffic for the Financial Year 2018/19 increased to 37.4 billion from 34.6 billion minutes recorded during the previous Financial Year.
The volume of local voice traffic originating from Safaricom PLC stood at 9.19 billion down from 9.8 billion minutes registered during the previous quarter. Consequently, during the same period, the operator’s market share dropped to 56.8 percent from 59.9 percent.
The originating voice traffic by Airtel increased by 7.7 percent during the quarter under review to post 6.3 billion minutes. As a result, the operator gained 3.2 percentage points to record a market share of 39.0 percent. Further, the operator’s total voice traffic grew significantly by 73.6 percent during the Financial Year to post 21.4 billion minutes.
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The outgoing traffic for Telkom declined from 671.8 million recorded last quarter to 647.3 million minutes during the period under review. The market shares also declined by 0.1 percentage points to stand at 4.0 percent.
The total traffic for the 2018/19 Financial Year stood at 2.6 billion minutes marking a growth of 14.3 percent from the previous year.
The total SMS sent from local mobile networks during the quarter increased by 11.2 percent to post 17.0 billion messages. However, the total number of messages sent during the 2018/19 Financial Year declined to 66.1 billion from 66.8 billion recorded during the previous Financial Year.
“Notably, Over-the-top messaging apps like WhatsApp are currently leading a paradigm shift away from traditional SMS and towards lower-cost and feature-rich alternatives,” noted the report.
As at June 30, 2019, the number of data/Internet subscriptions stood at 49.9 million with 99.9 percent being on mobile data. This was an increase of 21.4 percent since June 30, 2018.
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As at June 30, 2019, the total number of .KE domains was recorded at 87,807 up from 83,915 domains reported as at the end of March 2019.
The service revenue from the mobile sub-sector grew by 9.4 percent to record Ksh270.5 billion in 2018. Similarly, the investments grew from Ksh41.5 billion reported in 2017 to Ksh57.5 billion in 2018.
The total number of Free-to-Air TV Stations grew by 6.3 percent to record 86 stations from 81 stations recorded in the previous period. On the other hand, digital TV subscriptions declined by 7.1 per cent to 5.4 million during the quarter under review.
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“The wane in subscriptions for digital TV is attributed to the increased uptake of streaming services especially among younger consumers, as more homes get connected devices,” adds the report.
Over the quarter under review, 26.6 million cyber threat eventswere detected as compared to 11.3 million cyber threat events detected in the previous quarter, attributed to the global increase in
malware including ransomware attacks during this period.
The number of employees in the mobile sub-sector has grown from 7,016 recorded in June 2018 to 8,689 recorded in June 2019. The ratio of males to females stood at 3:2.
The value of the ICT Sector grew by 12.9 percent in 2018 to 390.2 billion from 345.6 billion Kenya Shillings recorded in 2017.
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