Airtel Money and Safaricom M-Pesa shops adjacent to each other in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Summary
- Airtel gained 2.5 percentage points raising its market share to 19.7 per cent.
- The firm made inroads in voice, data and short message services at the expense of Safaricom and Telkom Kenya.
- While Safaricom lost 6,011 mobile subscribers to close at 29.5 million subscriptions, Telkom Kenya lost 55,563 customers during the same period.
Airtel Kenya registered gains in market share during the three
months to March 2018, eating into the pie of market leader Safaricom and rival Telkom Kenya.
Communications
Authority of Kenya (CA) data released yesterday indicates that Airtel
gained 2.5 percentage points raising its market share to 19.7 per cent
as it signed up new customers and made inroads in voice, data and short
message services at the expense of Safaricom and Telkom Kenya.
“Airtel's
mobile subscription grew by 18.2 per cent to post 8.7 million
subscriptions from 7.3 million recorded during the previous period,”
noted the CA.
During the period under review,
Safaricom’s market share shrunk by 2.1 percentage points from 69.1 per
cent posted in the previous quarter to 67 per cent even though it
retained its market leader tag. Telkom Kenya saw a marginal drop in
market share in the period from nine per cent recorded in the last
quarter to 8.6 per cent.
While Safaricom lost 6,011 mobile subscribers to close at 29.5
million subscriptions, Telkom Kenya lost 55,563 customers during the
same period.
On voice traffic, Airtel recorded a total
of 3.6 billion minutes which was an increase from 2.5 billion minutes
recorded during the previous quarter, a 44 per cent gain. Subsequently,
this helped its market share by mobile voice traffic to grow by 6.7
percentage points to stand at 28.7 per cent.
“This
increase in mobile voice minutes is attributed to the additional 1.3
million mobile subscriptions gained by the operator during the period
under review,” said the CA in the report.
Safaricom was
on the losing end registering a six percentage points drop in its
market shares for mobile voice traffic to stand at 66.5 per cent during
the quarter. Telkom Kenya’s share of voice traffic dropped by 0.6
percentage points to stand at 4.6 per cent.
Airtel made further inroads into SMS traffic growing the number
of SMSs originating from its network from 557.9 million messages to
659.2 million messages in the period under review resulting in a market
gain of 4.4 per cent.
Safaricom, on the other hand,
recorded a 17.5 per cent drop in SMSs sent from its network to 14.1
billion leading to a 1.4 percentage point drop in SMS market share.
Telkom Kenya recorded a decline of 13.8 percent in its total SMS
traffic.
Airtel recorded a gain of 4.6 percentage
points in mobile data and Internet subscriptions to post a market share
of 23.1 per cent as Safaricom’s market share in this segment reduced by
4.4 percentage points to 68.4 per cent.
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