NAIROBI, Kenya 1 Jul – Airtel Kenya increased its mobile data subscriptions from 4.6 million to 5.1 million users, marking an 11 percent rise in the period from January to March 2016.
The industry statistics, released by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), shows Safaricom still controls the lion’s share of the mobile data market even though its subscriptions declined by 2.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.
Airtel Kenya’s Data market share recorded a 3.1 percentage point growth, increasing from 18% to 21.1% while Orange Kenya lost 2.8 percentage points to record 11.2 per cent market shares.
Overall, the CA report indicates mobile internet subscriptions rose to 24.7 million up from 23.7 posted during the previous quarter representing growth of 3.8 per cent.
Mobile data has become the new battle front for telcos as revenues from calls flatten and messaging apps eat into SMS revenue stream. The CA has given the three operators a one month trial period for the use of 4G technology starting Jul 1, after which they are required to pay Sh2.5B each for the license.
