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Safaricom leads the race for post-paid tariff subscribers

mobile

A woman makes a call. The number of prepaid mobile phone subscribers rose to 33.8 million in March, up from 32.7 million. PHOTO | FILE

The number of mobile phone subscribers on post-paid tariff plans increased 9.6 per cent in the three months to March, a reflection of users’ growing preference for getting a handle on their monthly communication spend.

Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) data for up to the end of March shows that Safaricom added 80,393 post-paid subscribers in the first quarter, reaching 782,593 accounts.

Airtel’s post-paid tariff added 2,266 accounts to lift the number of its subscribers to 151,286, while Telkom Kenya’s Orange only managed 99 new accounts pushing its customer base to 3,164. Equitel, the telecommunications arm of Equity Bank, is yet to start offering post-paid services.

During the period under review, the total number of post-paid customers hit 937,043 — still far below the total number of prepaid subscribers that reached 33.8 million in March, up from 32.7 million during the corresponding quarter.

“Overall, the number of pre-paid and post-paid mobile subscriptions grew by 3.3 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively,” reads part of the CA quarter one report.

Safaricom gained 2.7 per cent and 11.4 per cent pre-paid and post-paid mobile subscriptions respectively during the three months. Its total number of subscribers grew by 3.0 per cent to stand at 23.3 million, up from 22.6 million registered in the previous quarter.

Airtel recorded an increase in the number of post-paid customers by 1.5 per cent to 151,286 subscriptions, up from 149,020 accounts posted in the last quarter.

However, the telco’s pre-paid subscriptions declined to 6.8 million down from 7.4 million subscriptions reported in the preceding quarter. Consequently, its total mobile subscriptions declined by 7.8 per cent to stand at 7.0 million.

Telkom Kenya (Orange) experienced significant growth in the number of pre-paid and post-paid mobile subscriptions, which increased by 12 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively.