Kenyans made a record 27.4 billion minutes in phone calls in the three months to December on the back of increased special offers and promotions.
Recent data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) reveals that Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya subscribers increased their call durations by 4.6 percent from 26.2 billion minutes recorded in the quarter to September.
Findings show that subscribers of Airtel Kenya spoke nearly twice as long on their mobile phones compared to those from Safaricom users explained by the telecoms operator’s cheap call tariffs and offers.
According to the regulator, on average Airtel users’ calls lasted 2.7 minutes within network tariff compared to Safaricom’s 1.6 and 1.5 for Telkom Kenya subscribers.
Consumers made an average of 298 million minutes of calls daily—a record in Kenya’s history—as mobile phone penetration deepens.
In the preceding quarter, the CA had noted; “This growth is attributed to special offers and promotions run by service providers during the review period, where consumers could pay as low as KES 20 for 10 minutes of all-net calls, 20 SMS, and 50 MB of data.”
Mobile phones have been one of the key elements behind Africa’s notable growth, eliminating barriers associating with ageing landline infrastructure and allowing people to communicate and transact at the lowest financial costs.
Photo credit: Compiled by John Waweru | Designed by Gennevieve Awino
Data from CA indicates that Kenya had 72 million phones comprising 41.4 million smartphones and 30.5 million feature gadgets.
Notably, the growth of mobile data—a robust economic tool compared to voice services-has grown in recent years, and hit a record in the quarter to December.
Mobile data subscriptions grew to a record 56.1 million in the three-month period from 53.7million in the quarter to September.
“Such growth is due to online activities such as streaming movies, online learning, remote work and among others have accelerated demand for high-speed internet leading to increased uptake of higher generation mobile technologies as is the case of 4G and 5G,” notes the CA.
According to experts, lowering taxes on web-enabled devices to make them affordable could help tap into AI.
