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Prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile subscriptions with the quarter under review posting 30.1 million pre-paid subscriptions/FILE

Kenya

Mobile phone subscriptions on the rise

Prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile subscriptions with the quarter under review posting 30.1 million pre-paid subscriptions/FILE

Prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile subscriptions with the quarter under review posting 30.1 million pre-paid subscriptions/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 21 – Mobile phone subscription increased by 2.5 percent between July and September last year to 30.4 million, compared to 29.7 million posted in the previous quarter.

A report released on Monday by the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) similarly shows that the quarter recorded growth in mobile penetration to reach 77.2 percent from 75.4 recorded at the close of the previous quarter.

Prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile subscriptions with the quarter under review posting 30.1 million pre-paid subscriptions, representing 99 percent of the total mobile subscriptions. Post-paid subscriptions grew by 8.9 percent to stand at 297,640 as at September 30, 2012.

Local mobile traffic grew by 10.5 percent to stand at 7 billion minutes up from 6.3 billion minutes posted in the previous quarter. CCK said the rise in mobile traffic, could be attributed to increase in mobile telephony subscriptions coupled with incentives to encourage usage by the operators during the period.

The Minutes of Use (MoU) per subscriber per month increased to 76.7 from 71.2 recorded in the previous period, representing a 7.7 percent growth.

The number of SMSs sent increased by 10.1 percent to reach 1 billion during the period. This shows that each subscriber sent an average of 11.9 SMSs per month during the period, up from 11.1 SMSs per subscriber per month recorded during the previous period.

On the other hand, the fixed line telecommunications network continued to record a downward trend. The quarter under review registered a 5.5 percent decline in the total fixed line (fixed terrestrial lines and fixed wireless) subscriptions.

Total fixed lines were recorded as 248,300 during the quarter, down from 262,711 subscriptions in the previous quarter, posting a decline of 30.2 percent.

Meanwhile, in the Internet market segment, the number of subscriptions rose by 10.2 percent, from 7.7 million subscriptions recorded in the previous period to 8.5 million subscriptions during the quarter under review.

Mobile Internet subscriptions continued to dominate the Internet market contributing 99.2 percent of the total Internet subscriptions.

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The number of estimated Internet users rose by 10 percent to stand at 13.5 million users as at September 30, 2012.

Broadband subscriptions grew by 38.4 from 726,802 subscriptions recorded during the previous period to one million subscriptions during the period under review.

CCK said the growth was accelerated by a promotion ran by one of the operators that offered reduced costs to handsets that have the capability to access 3G services.

In the postal and courier sector, the number of letters sent locally increased by 5.9 percent to reach 17.7 million letters during the period, up from 16.7 million letters posted the previous quarter. However, when compared to the same period of the previous year, a decline of 14.3 percent was recorded.

International incoming letters increased by 26.8 percent to 158,549 up from 125,020 letters received during the previous period.

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