Internet growth dips 6pc on population revision

By Lillian Kiarie

Kenyan Internet market has recorded the first ever negative growth following a drop of subscribers for the first quarter of the 2013/2014 financial year.  The decline has been attributed to the revision of the national population figure from 39.5 million to 40.7 million as reflected in the Economic Survey 2013.

The latest Communications Commission of Kenya report for July to September 2013, the local internet market experienced a 6.1 per cent drop in growth. “Internet growth dropped to 11.6 million in the quarter ending September 2013 up from 12.4 million in June 2013,” the report states. The report released yesterday further indicates that the number of local internet users dipped to 19.1 million down from 19.6 million posted in the previous quarter, effectively reducing the penetration rate of Internet services from 49.7 per cent to 47.1 per cent.

Further, Kenyans’ habitual texting was captured by the report which states that subscribers sent an average of 54 SMS per month. According to the report, the number of SMS went up by 19.5 per cent to 5.2 billion up from 4.3 billion recorded in the previous quarter.

 At the same time, Kenyans have been very active in the mobile telephony sector. Mobile subscribers increased by 2.5 per cent to reach 31.3 million up from 30.5 million recorded in the previous quarter. Competition from ‘Over the Top messaging’ services such as Whatsapp saw the number of multimedia messages sent drop from 2.5 million in the previous quarter to 2.2 million.