NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 14- Kenyans sent 14.2 billion text messages in the three months to December 2020, a new data shows.
The latest data from the Communication Authority reveals that this was a 16.5 percent declined witnessed in the period, from 17.0 billion text messages that were sent in the previous quarter.
At the same time, during the second quarter of Financial Year 2020/21, the number of short messages sent per subscription per month dropped to 77.0 from 94.6 posted in the first quarter.
On the other hand, Minutes of Use per Month per Subscription rose to 106.8 from 101.2 registered in the preceding quarter.
CA has attributed the decline to the newly introduced data and voice tariffs that was adopted by many mobile users in the period under review.
“The drop is a result of a reduction in SMS bundle usage with many customers preferring to take advantage of the available voice and data offers instead, from the Safaricom@20 promotion,” reads the report.
The regulator said that in the period under review international mobile voice minutes originating from East African Community countries declined significantly to 54.2 million from 79.9 million minutes posted in the previous quarter.
CA has linked the drop to newly introduced promotion tariffs introduced by MTN Rwanda which many customers subscribed to.
“This drop is mainly attributed to the conclusion of several international voice promotions offered by MTN Rwanda during the previous period,” CA said in the report.
Total international incoming mobile voice minutes also dropped by 21.4 percent to 106.8 minutes.
However, international outgoing mobile voice minutes grew by 3.0 percent to record 125.1 minutes during the review period.