Safaricom has this year attracted higher levels of customer dissatisfaction over network coverage than Airtel, as a growing share of its users reported difficulties making calls, sending messages, or accessing broadband internet services.
A consumer survey by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that 12 percent of Safaricom customers said they were “very dissatisfied” with coverage, up from 4.9 percent last year, overtaking its closest rival, Airtel.
Last year, Airtel had the highest share of customers reporting extreme dissatisfaction with coverage at 6.2 percent but this has dropped to 11.8 percent this year.
Jamii Telecoms recorded the highest proportion of very dissatisfied customers, with 18.9 percent saying they were “very dissatisfied” with coverage, followed by Telkom Kenya at 17.4 percent.
However, Jamii outperformed all other operators on average coverage satisfaction, posting a mean score of 72.7 percent.
CA data shows that Safaricom’s average coverage satisfaction fell placing it third this year with a mean score of 65.8 percent, down from first place last year at 76.7 percent.
The decline allowed Airtel to narrow the satisfaction gap between the two operators, although Airtel’s own average score slipped to 65 percent from 66.9 percent last year.
The mean score reflects an average of all responses on a five-point satisfaction scale, converted into a percentage for ease of comparison.
“Safaricom customers generally perceive the brand as strong, but frustrations emerge around service access and responsiveness,” CA said in its annual consumer survey, which assesses satisfaction with the services offered by licensed operators.
“Its mean score of 65.8 percent places it slightly above Airtel, indicating steady but not exceptional satisfaction, with neutrality being more common among its customers.”
The fall in Safaricom’s satisfaction score coincided with a growing number of customers reporting challenges using core services, including voice calls, short message service and internet connectivity.
For voice services, the share of Safaricom clients reporting successful call connection on the first dial fell from 51 percent last year to 17.5 percent this year, making it the worst-performing operator on this metric.
Airtel led on call connectivity, with 43 percent of its customers reporting successful first-dial connections, up from 24 percent last year.
Jamii followed at 30 percent, while Telkom recorded 24 percent.
Fewer Safaricom customers also reported never experiencing call disconnections. Just 8 percent said they had never experienced disconnections this year, down from 24 percent last year.
Airtel again outperformed Safaricom on this measure, for the first time, with 20 percent of its customers reporting no call disconnections, up from 10 percent last year. Jamii led the category at 30 percent, while Telkom came third at 17 percent.
The share of Safaricom customers reporting excellent call quality also dropped sharply, from 28 percent last year to just 5 percent in 2025, while Airtel saw a modest improvement from 11 percent to 14 percent.
SMS performance was another area of decline. Only 10 percent of Safaricom customers said they never experienced challenges sending SMS messages, down from 19 percent last year.
Broadband internet services also recorded weakening satisfaction. The share of Safaricom customers dissatisfied with broadband quality nearly tripled, rising from 5.2 percent to 14.5 percent. CA noted, however, that dissatisfaction increased across all operators, pointing to an industry-wide issue.
While Safaricom registered some improvement in customer satisfaction with service charges, it dropped from being the industry leader to recording the lowest satisfaction levels on pricing among the operators.
“While still a majority, these lower figures indicate that Safaricom customers are less confident in billing accuracy, particularly for data services,” CA said.
The declining satisfaction appears to be weighing on Safaricom’s market position. Its voice market share fell from 63 percent last December to 61 percent as of September, while its fixed internet market share slipped from 36 percent to 35 percent over the same period.
