Following the Communications Authority (CA)’s directive that all mobile operators register their unregistered subscribers, Safaricom lost 438,797 subscribers in the first three months of this year.
According to recent figures from CA, the total number of SIM cards registered in Kenya decreased by 124,689 in the first quarter of this year. Sim penetration rate also declined for the first time in years.
CA also noted that active mobile sim subscriptions declined from 65.1 million in December 2021 to 64.9 million by the end of March this year. They have attributed this to the ongoing sim registration exercise that has caused the deactivation of many sim cards.
In December last year, Safaricom had a total of 42,8 million registered subscribers. By the end of March this year, it had reduced to 42,4 million. These figures represent a decline in the telco’s market share, from 65.8 percent to 65.3 percent.
Among the other mobile operators, only Telkom Kenya did not register a change. Other mobile operators registered an increase in the number of subscribers during the same period. Airtel Kenya added 303,198 more subscribers to its network. Finserve added 7,072 while Jamii Telkom added 17,982 users.
Due to public outcry on sim registration directive, CA was forced to extend the deadline it had given mobile operators to deactivate unregistered sim cards. The period was extended from 15 April 2022 to 15th October 2022. Until then, they should register and submit their records for audit.
The CA revealed further statistics on mobile money, data subscriptions, broadcasting, and cybersecurity. The first quarter of this year recorded an increase in mobile money deposits by Sh4.3 billion, totaling Sh1.2 billion. Person-to-person transfers, on the other hand, went down by Sh17 billion.
There was a significant drop in cyber security cases by 38 percent, from 129 million in December 2021 to 79 million in March 2022.
