Mobile Subscriptions Hit 66m as at March 2023
The number of mobile (SIM) subscriptions in the country now stands at 66.1 million as at 31st March 2023, the latest report from CA shows.
According to the quarterly sector statistics report for January-March 2023, there was an increase of 0.5 per cent from 65.7 million recorded in the preceding quarter, translating to a mobile (SIM) penetration rate of 130.5 percent.
However, compared to the previous quarter, the mobile penetration rate dipped by 2.6 percentage points following the review of the country’s population figures from 49.4 million to 50.6 million in the 2023 Economic Survey.
The number of SIM cards used for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) purposes grew by 1.9 percent to 1.53 million by end of March 2023. Mobile money subscriptions stood at 38.4 million translating to a penetration rate of 76 percent, a drop of 2.2 percentage points as a result of reduced activities in mobile money services during the quarter under review.
The number of registered mobile money agents increased by 3.9 per cent to 331, 065. The report shows that mobile data/Internet subscriptions stood at 47.96 million, out of which 67.1 percent were on mobile broadband.
The uptake of mobile broadband has continued to increase as the consumers desire faster Internet speeds.
At the same time, the number of mobile devices stood at 62.96 million as at the end of the quarter, translating to a device penetration rate of 124.5 per cent. The penetration rate for feature phones and smartphones stood at 66.2 per cent and 58.3 per cent respectively.
During the period, the total international Internet bandwidth available in the country grew by 20.4 percent to 14,413.053Gbps attributed largely to capacity upgrade on the cable by TEAMS during the period. Similarly, the total utilized undersea bandwidth capacity increased by 25.5 percent to 5,161.918Gbps while 2,953.820Gbps was sold outside the country.
In the broadcasting sub-sector, the number of licensed commercial free-to-air TV stands at 318, while community free-to-air TV remained unchanged at nine (9). At the same time, the number of licensed commercial FM radio increased to 190 up from 180 the previous quarter while community radio went up to 67 from 63 recorded in the preceding quarter.
Subscriptions to broadcasting services grew by 0.2 percent to 6.205 million from 6.191 million reported during the preceding quarter.
In the postal and courier sub sector, outgoing domestic letters increased by 57.7 per cent to stand at 625, 823 while the number of outgoing courier items declined by 17 per cent to 1,097,222.
In the period, the Authority assigned frequencies to various operators for deployment of 81 microwave links and processed the decommissioning of 23 fixed links.Further, the Authority assigned 14 FM sound broadcasting frequencies to broadcasters.
The total number of users for .KE domains stood at 104,725 with .CO.KE sub-domain recording the highest market share of users at 89.9 percent.
The number of cyber threats detected in the quarter stood at 187.7 million, representing a 24.9 per cent decline from the previous quarter’s 249.9 million.