Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/30/2013 -- The Kenyan telecoms market is dynamic and developing rapidly, even by regional standards in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a regional leader in terms of value-added services, most notably Safaricom's MPESA mobile banking service, which is a global leader. The rapid expansion of leased international bandwidth is also proving an important catalyst for data consumption. Meanwhile, the conventional mobile market still holds growth potential with penetration of just 68.9% in Q212. While full data is not yet available for Q312, Safaricom data indicates that this will be another quarter of strong expansion for the market. However, countering this positive outlook, and perhaps driving innovation, are low prices and regulatory uncertainty.

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Key Data

- Safaricom was the only operator to report Q312 mobile subscriber numbers. It registered 19.2mn at the end of the quarter.
- Safaricom had a positive FYH113. Total revenue was KES59.1bn (US$680mn), up by 19% y-o-y. Nonvoice services (SMS, data and M-PESA) continue to drive revenue growth, rising by 28% y-o-y in H112/13 to KES18.7bn, while the operator enjoyed an impressive 19% y-o-y growth in voice revenue to KES37.4bn.
- There was no new regulatory data available from the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) in Q312.
- ARPU, revenues and EBITDA also picked up.

Key Trends & Developments

- The CCK announced on January 1 2013 it would deactivate around 6mn mobile phone lines that were not registered during the stipulated registration period that ended on December 31 2012. This move would reduce the subscriber base by around 20%,.In November 2012 Safaricom launched a mobile banking service called M-Shwari in partnership with Commercial Bank of Africa. Subscribers will be required to open a mobile bank account through their phones, and loans must be repaid within a month of disbursement. The service attracted 645,000 clients in the first three weeks of operation.
- In November 2012, the CCK made a decision on the scale of mobile termination rate (MTR) reductions it will impose on the country's mobile network operators. The MTR was reduced from KES2.21 to KES1.44, with retroactive effect from July 1 2012.
- In December 2012, Bharti Airtel announced it will provide a sum of KES8bn (US$91.4mn) to its Kenyan unit, Airtel Kenya, to support its 3G network expansion plan. The Kenyan unit plans to grow 3G network sites from the current 360 to 550 by May 2013. The 3G network expansion aims to benefit from the rising number of mobile internet users in the country.

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