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Equitel dethrones Telkom to claim third spot in market share
Equity Group Holdings Limited CEO James Mwangi. Equitel marked the second-fastest expansion of its subscriber base at a 3.2 percent rate in the three months to September 2024.
Equity Bank’s telecoms unit has dislodged Telkom Kenya as the country’s third largest operator, as the lender through its Equitel brand continued to gain subscribers at the expense of the State-owned rival.
Latest official data shows that during the three months that ended last September, Equitel marked the second-fastest expansion of its subscriber base at a 3.2 percent rate, adding 46,938 users to hit 1.5 million subscribers up from 1.45 million in June.
Telkom, on the other hand, shed a total of 312,676 SIM subscribers during the period, marking a 21.1 percent dip which relegated it to the fourth position, and extending a trend observed during the year to June 2024 when the firm lost over one million customers.
The latest loss, which has made Telkom the lone loser among rivals, has seen the firm’s customer base shrink to 1.17 million users as of the close of September down from 1.48 at the end of June last year.
Jamii Telecommunications Limited (JTL) gained at the fastest pace of 5.2 percent during the quarter, adding 30,847 new SIM card holders to stand at 620,955 customers.
Market leader Safaricom gained at the slowest percentile rate of 1.9 percent, gathering 861,633 fresh users to bring its total subscriber base to 45.9 million up from 45.1 million in June, while Airtel cemented its position as the second largest sector player with a 2.2 percent jump to 20.7 million users.
“The number of active mobile (SIM) subscriptions grew by 1.6 percent to 70 million by end of September 2024 from 68.9 million recorded the previous quarter, representing a penetration rate of 135.8 percent,” wrote the Communications Authority of Kenya in the report.
Telkom’s woes trace their genesis to the beginning of April 2022 when the CA started switching off SIM cards that were not regularly registered--marking the latest round of the exercise undertaken by the government since 2013.
“Active SIM (Mobile) subscription refer to those SIM cards used at least once in the last three months, and have generated revenue through making or receiving a call or carrying out a non-voice activity such as sending or receiving an SMS, accessing the Internet, airtime top-up, transacting using mobile money and mobile banking.”
According to the regulator, activities that do not result in revenue generation such as balance enquiry, unanswered calls, and password resets among other free services, do not qualify a customer account as active.
In the drive, telcos were required to re-register their subscribers by updating their details with a digital passport-size photo of the customers.
The regulator said at the time that irregularly registered SIM cards were being used to perpetuate crime, including in the forms of money laundering, kidnapping, malicious calls, cyber crime as well as mobile money fraud.
Telkom has over the years struggled to keep pace with Safaricom and Airtel in the race for the local market and the sustained dip in active customers is set to significantly dent the firm’s revenues from a range of services that include calls, SMS, and mobile money, among others.