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The number of Internet subscribers increased by 75.1 percent in the quarter compared to same period in 2011/FILE

Kenya

Kenya’s Internet users hit 16.2mn

The number of Internet subscribers increased by 75.1 percent in the quarter compared to same period in 2011/FILE

The number of Internet subscribers increased by 75.1 percent in the quarter compared to same period in 2011/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 18 – The number of Internet users in Kenya stood at 16.2 million by December 31 last year, an 11.6 percent growth from the 14.5 million users recorded at the end of September 2012.

According to new data from the Communications Commission of Kenya, Internet penetration in the country went up by 4.3 percent to 41.1 percent in the last quarter of last year (the second quarter of the 2012/2013 financial year).

The number of Internet subscribers increased by 75.1 percent in the quarter compared to same period in 2011.

The report indicated that mobile data/Internet continued to dominate the market contributing 99 percent of the total internet/data subscriptions in the country.

However, the number of broadband subscribers declined to 1,002,701 from 1,006,071 posted during the previous period, mainly due to a reduction in the number of fixed terrestrial broadband subscribers.

The report attributes the growth in the Internet/data market segment to international Internet connectivity bandwidth that has continued to spiral upwards.

During the quarter under review, the international Internet used bandwidth rose to 328,641 Megabytes per second (Mbps) from 278,329 Mbps posted during the previous period, representing an increase of 18.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the total number of mobile subscribers in Kenya rose to 30.7 million, representing a marginal growth of 1.0 percent from the previous quarter. As observed during the previous period, the rate of growth has slowed down as the market appears saturated and tending towards maturity.

Pre-paid subscribers continued to dominate the mobile sub-sector contributing 99 percent of the total number of subscribers.

Mobile penetration on the other hand increased to 78 percent during the same period up from 77.2 percent recorded during the first quarter.

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All mobile operators recorded positive growth in service subscription beside Telkom (Orange) which lost 609,321 customers, representing a decline of 19.7 percent during the quarter under review.

The number of letters sent locally declined by 2.0 percent to reach 17.3 million down from 17.7 million letters sent during the previous period.

Compared to the same period of the previous year, a decline of 11.8 percent was recorded.

The number of international incoming letters grew by 20.9 percent during the period to reach 191,672 letters from 158,549 received during the previous period.

Similarly international outgoing letters reached 1.9 million from 1.6 million during the previous period, representing 18.1 percent increase.

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