Airtel Records 69% Customer Growth

An analysis of the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that the number of Bharti Airtel subscribers has grown by nearly 70 percent in the nine quarters to last quarters to last December.

The telco had 11.56 million subscribers as at the end of last year, a rise from 6.84 million as at December 2016. This makes it the fastest growing telecommunication company in the industry by customer base.

In comparison, Safaricom, saw its customer base increase by 12 percent from 27.73 million to 31.32 million over the same period.

Meanwhile, Telkom Kenya, saw subscriptions grow by 53 percent through the nine quarters to report 4.47 million users. It presently controls a market share of 9 percent.

From the data above, Airtel subscribers have increased by an average of one million every quarter from September 2017 to December 2018. This is as market leader Safaricom averaged a growth of 0.4 million subscribers.

The CA stated in the December 2018 report that Safaricom PLC market share for mobile subscriptions dropped by 0.9 percentage points to stand at 63.3 percent. On the other hand, Airtel Networks Limited gained 1.1 percentage points to record a market share of 23.4 percent during the period under review.

Airtel’s growth also comes despite of the loss of more than half a million subscribers in a SIM card switch-off last year due to fraudulent registrations.