Kenyans conducted 607.4 million mobile money transactions valued at Sh1.763 trillion in the second quarter of the 2017/18 according to a Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) latest report.

During the period under review, from October to December 2017, 308.6 million mobile commerce transactions were done valued at Sh1.1 trillion while person-to-person transfers added up to Sh596.4 million.

As of December 31, 2017, mobile money transfer subscriptions stood at 30.0 million while the total number of agents was 198,234. M-Pesa had the highest number of agents at 152,077.

Mobile Subscriptions

During the period, active mobile subscriptions rose 4.4 per cent to 42.8 million from 41 million in the first quarter. In addition, mobile penetration grew to 94.3 per cent from 90.4 per cent in the first quarter.

Safaricom’s market share in mobile subscriptions dropped 2.8 per cent to 69.1 per cent compared to 71.9 per cent in the first quarter. The market share for Airtel Networks Limited increased to 17.2 per cent from 14.9 per cent in the previous quarter.

The report states:

“Telkom Kenya Limited gained 0.6 per cent to register a market share of 9.0 per cent from 8.4 per cent posted in the previous quarter. On the other hand, Finserve Africa Limited lost by 0.2 percentage points to post a market share of 4.5 per cent. The market shares for Sema Mobile Services and Mobile Pay Limited remained unchanged at 0.0 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.”

In the second quarter of the period under review, the prepaid subscription stood at 41.4 million while postpaid subscriptions stood at 1.4 million.

Local Voice Traffic

The total mobile voice traffic rose 6.5 per cent to 11.8 billion minutes during the period under review from 11.0 billion minutes in the previous quarter.

“On-net mobile voice traffic grew by 5.8 per cent to stand at 10.4 billion minutes from 9.920 minutes recorded during the previous period. Off-net mobile voice traffic rose by 13.1 per cent to post 1.2 billion minutes. Further, mobile to fixed voice traffic increased to 23.2 million minutes from 23.0 million minutes recorded in the previous quarter,” says the report.

Data/Internet Usage

Data subscriptions grew eight per cent to 33.3 million during the second quarter from 30.8 million in the previous quarter.

Safaricom PLC recorded the highest market share of mobile data subscriptions at 72.8 per cent, a drop from 76.0 per cent. Airtel’s market share surged 2.8 per cent to record 18.5 per cent while Telkom Kenya’s market share stood at 7.8 per cent.

The market shares for Finserve, Mobile Pay, and Sema stood at 0.6 per cent, 0.3 per cent, and 0.0 per cent respectively.

According to the report, Wananchi Group Limited had the largest market share of fixed/wireless data subscriptions at 36.7 per cent, a drop from 41.0 per cent in the previous quarter.