Safaricom gains 5.5 million subscribers as Kenya’s mobile market hits 84.1 million

The latest sector statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) for the Third Quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year (January–March 2026) show significant growth in active mobile subscriptions, which reached 84.1 million, representing a 7.4 percent increase from the previous quarter.

This growth pushed the mobile penetration rate to 157.7 percent.

During the period under review, Safaricom further strengthened its leadership in the mobile subscriptions market, adding approximately 5.5 million new subscriptions and bringing its total subscriber base to 57.9 million, up from 52.4 million in the previous quarter.

The operator is now approaching the significant milestone of 60 million subscribers in the Kenyan market with 68.9% market share.

Airtel is at 23.2 million subscribers and a market share of 27.6%. Equitel (Finserve) recorded a marginal increase in subscriptions to 1.51 million, representing 1.8% of the market, while Jamii Telecommunications (Faiba) stood at 883,944 subscribers, accounting for 1.1%.

In contrast, Telkom Kenya experienced a sharp decline, losing 160,464 subscribers during the quarter to close at 584,438 subscribers, equivalent to 0.7% of the market.

The Communications Authority attributed this robust growth primarily to customer win-back campaigns run by operators during the reference period.

Other sustaining factors include falling device costs, the expansion of high-speed mobile network infrastructure and the growing necessity of mobile-based economic and social services in Kenya.

This shift continues to be marked by a migration from basic feature phones to smartphones, with smartphones now accounting for 63.7 per cent of total mobile phones connected to networks.

Furthermore, as of March 31, 2026, Kenya had 62.6 million mobile broadband internet subscriptions.

Safaricom also leads in this segment with 62.7 per cent market share compared to 64.3 per cent in the last quatre.

In the fixed data segment, Safaricom leads with a 35.4 per cent market share. Key challengers in this space include Jamii Telecommunications (19.5%), Wananchi Group (10.4%), and Poa Internet Kenya (9.7%).

Smaller providers such as Ahadi Wireless (9.2%), Vilcom Network (6.0%), and Mawingu Networks (3.7%) continue to serve niche segments, while Starlink maintains a market share of 0.9 percent.

Safaricom remains the market leader in mobile money subscriptions with an 89.1 percent share, as the sub-segment grew to a total of 53.4 million active subscriptions.

Domestic voice traffic is distributed among operators as follows: Safaricom (64.96%), Airtel (34.88%), Telkom (0.07%), Equitel (0.05%), and Jamii (0.04%).

For SMS traffic, the shares are: Safaricom (93.96%), Airtel (6.01%), Telkom (0.01%), Equitel (0.01%), and Jamii (0.0%).