Kenya’s telecom sector earns twice Uganda’s, Rwanda’s combined

By Dominic Omondi
Mobile phone operators in Kenya received twice the revenue their counterparts in Rwanda and Uganda did in the three months to June.

In a rare glimpse into the sector’s financial muscle, GSM Association (GSMA), a lobby for telecom providers, found that Kenya’s mobile phone operators raked in Sh55.8 billion in the second quarter of this year.

Safaricom, East Africa’s most profitable firm, accounted for about 90 per cent of this income, with the rest coming from Airtel and Orange Kenya. Data report

This was more than twice what operators in Rwanda (Sh4 billion) and Uganda (Sh22.3 billion) earned combined, according to GSMA Intelligence’s latest data report on 11 countries in Africa.

Rwanda has three telecom providers, with two of them, Airtel and MTN RwandaCell, offering mobile telephone services. RwandaTel offers fixed telephone services.

Uganda, on the other hand, has six operators: MTN, Airtel, Africell, Vodafone, UTL and Smile Telecom

In its full-year results, Safaricom reported total revenue of Sh195 billion — which works out to about Sh49 billion every quarter. This means that Safaricom’s revenue in three months was more than what telecom operators in Malawi, Rwanda and Somalia combined earned over the same period.

Safaricom controls more than 70 per cent market share in Kenya in the sub-sectors of voice, SMS and data.

The mobile operator’s revenues exceed those of Tanzania, whose telecom sector with seven operators received about Sh39.2 billion in revenue between April and June this year.

Of the 11 countries surveyed by GSMA Intelligence, Tanzania’s telecom sector was found to be the second-largest earner, with Zimbabwe coming in third with revenues of Sh22.7 billion.

The other countries ranked were Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Somali, South Sudan and Zambia.

Much as Kenya’s telecom sector made the most money, it does not have the most subscribers. This trophy went to Ethiopia, which has 32.9 million subscribers against Kenya’s 26.1 million subscribers.

However, according to the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) that covers the period January to March this year, Kenya has 38.3 million subscriptions, which increased mobile penetration to 89.2 per cent. This figure also includes subscriptions on Equitel, which is not yet a member of GSMA.

Unique subscribers

GSMA explained this difference of about 12 million subscribers by saying CA’s numbers may take into account all mobile phone connections, whether active or not. GSMA registers only unique subscribers.

In terms of total number of connections, however, the association puts Kenya’s total subscriptions at about 37.5 million, close to CA’s figures. It also puts the country’s average SIM card ownership at 1.43, meaning mobile phone users, on average, have multiple lines.

Tanzania, on the other hand, has 25.3 million subscribers, while Uganda has 15.8 million subscribers.

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