Safaricom voice market share rises to 3-year high

Safaricom headquarters on Nairobi’s Waiyaki Way. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA

By JOHN MUTUA
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Summary

• The late
  st industry data from the Communications Authority (CA) shows that the telco’s share of voice market grew to 69.2 per cent in the three months to December.
• The regulator attributed the rise to Safaricom’s calls and mobile data offer dubbed Safaricom@20 Promotion.

Safaricom’s  share of voice market in December rose to the highest level in three years, cementing the telco’s dominance.

The latest industry data from the Communications Authority (CA) shows that the telco’s share of voice market grew to 69.2 per cent in the three months to December from 64.7 per cent in September.

The regulator attributed the rise to Safaricom’s calls and mobile data offer dubbed Safaricom@20 Promotion.

Safaricom’s rising share of the voice market came as rivals Airtel and Telkom Kenya continued to lose grip.

“The increase is mainly attributed to Safaricom@20 Promotion that aimed at availing new subscribers with attractive voice and data bundle offers, while offering similar incentives to their existing customers,” CA says in the report.

Airtel’s share of the voice market dropped to 28.5 per cent in the period under review from 32.1 per cent in September while Telkom Kenya’s share fell to 2.2 per cent from three per cent.

The last time Safaricom’s dominance of the voice market was higher than 69. 2 percent was in June 2018 when it stood at 70 per cent.

The data shows that Safaricom’s subscribers called for 13. 59 billion minutes in the three months to December from 11.75 billion minutes in September while the talk-time by Airtel subscribers rose to 5.59 billion minutes from 5.83 billion minutes.

The jump in Safaricom’s dominance drove the number of minutes callers spent by subscribers to 19.66 billion in the period from 18.17 billion minutes in September.