Safaricom’s market share dropped 1.6 percentage points to 65.4% in the three months to June as Bharti Airtel’s Kenyan unit and Telkom Kenya increased mobile phone customers at a faster pace.
Airtel’s market share climbed 1.7 percentage points to 21.4% and Telkom Kenya grew its market share 0.2 percentage points to 8.8%, the Communications Authority of Kenya said in a report on its website.
Quarter on quarter, Safaricom customers increased 0.7%, or 209 863, Airtel subscribers grew 11.9%, or 1.03 million, and Telkom’s customer base climbed 5%, or 190 369, according to data from the industry regulator.
Mobile phone penetration in Kenya rose to almost 98% in the three months from 95.1% in the preceding quarter as users in East Africa’s largest economy rose to 45.5 million from 44.1 million, according to the industry regulator.
There were 29.6 million mobile money accounts at the end of June and transactions worth 1.4-trillion shillings (US$13.6-billion) were made between April and June. — Reported by Eric Ombok, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP