A fast-changing technological space coupled with the need for fast internet speeds across work, entertainment and education has dealt a blow to the legacy third-generation network (3G).
Mobile phone users on 3G declined 26.8 percent to 5.68 million as of September 2025 compared to 7.77 million a year earlier. The numbers had been on a decline over the years before the latest sharp fall, having stood at 11.78 million in September 2023.
Those using faster 4G and 5G have grown over this period, underscoring demand for high-speed and wide bandwidth internet for online learning and increased number of people working from home.
Kenya, like many other countries, has recorded a jump in remote working and online jobs, in the last few years. The two took root in the wake of the Coronavirus scourge in 2020.
3G –which was an upgrade from 2G— is slower and has a smaller capacity to carry data and information compared to 4G and 5G networks, explaining why a majority of subscribers have been moving en masse to 4G and 5G. Besides high speed and bandwidth, the two have lower latency rates (faster speeds).
“Data consumption across 4G and 5G technologies continued to grow while 3G maintained a downward trend,” CA says in its sector report for the three months to September 2025.
The industry data shows that subscribers on 4G surged to 39.98 million as of September 2025 from 31.17 million a year earlier.
Online learning, e-medicine and remote working have become the norm, with their adoption significantly growing since 2020 when Coronavirus-induced restrictions forced Kenya, like other economies, to scale up use of the internet.
Safaricom launched 3G in Kenya in May 2007, as mobile users sought networks with higher speed mobile data compared to the 2G technology. Orange and Airtel would later follow suit.
Safaricom and Airtel launched the latest 5G network three years ago and the telcos are keen to ramp up the investment to meet the fast-growing demand for high-speed internet with bigger bandwidth.
Use of 3G has been falling year-on- year since September 2022 when some 1.54 million subscribers ditched the service in a year to 10.24 million in September of the following year and further to 7.77 million the following year.
3G network was introduced in the early 2000s and enabled mobile devices to access the internet at faster speeds than 2G. However, they are now being phased out by the 4G and 5G networks that offer far superior data speeds, better reliability and lower latency.
Safaricom, the biggest telco in Kenya in terms of market share has upped the number of 4G and 5G sites in response to the demand for high-speed internet in the country.
Company disclosures show that Safaricom had 1,700 active sites for 5G in the year ended March 2025, more than double the 803 a year ago. The telco has more than 6,900 sites for the 4G network. “We also continued to invest in our network coverage, working to transition customers from 2G to 4G devices, while accelerating 5G, fixed wireless and fibre rollout,” Safaricom says in its latest annual report.
The company added that the number of mobile phones on its 5G network jumped 57 percent to 1.05 million in the year ended March 2025 while those on the 4G network are over 22 million.
Airtel Kenya, on the other hand, had 690 active sites for 5G as at July last year and planned to launch an additional 1,000 as it races to catch up with Safaricom.
The fast-growing demand for entertainment which can be accessed on both television and mobile phones such as Netflix, YouTube, Showmax has made 4G and 5G a near must-have for those keen to switch on these platforms.
E-learning applications, cloud-based platforms, and real-time collaboration are heavily reliant on high-speed internet with high bandwidth, placing 4G and 5G networks at the heart of online learning.
Safaricom launched 5G commercially in 2022 as it sought to deepen its dominance and build up on the 4G which it had rolled out eight years earlier.
Airtel Kenya –the second biggest telco in Kenya— launched its 5G network in 2023. The firm had rolled out its 4G network in 2018.
Telkom Kenya is yet to roll out a 5G network, having launched the 4G version in 2017. The telco signed a deal with two technology firms from Japan and the US to boost the quality of their internet services amid heightened push to roll out 5G.
But costly gadgets and pricey data continue to derail the uptake of both 4G and 5G network in African economies including Kenya, a scenario that looks to persist amid harsh economic times that are increasingly forcing many to cut spending to the bare-minimum.
A report by Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) shows that costly gadgets and data continue to be a major hindrance in the uptake of the internet.
GSMA –a global body representing mobile network operators— flagged Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania as economies where data costs are a major hurdle.
“While handset cost is a major obstacle to initial adoption, data affordability emerges as a more pressing concern for those already using mobile internet in most countries surveyed,” GSMA says in a report that was published in October this year.
“In Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania, data costs were a particularly significant issue, ranking as the top reported barrier to further use among both urban and rural respondents.”
Unlike other countries across the world, Kenya has not declared a deadline to shut 3G network and the migration to 4G and 5G is firmly hinged on the telcos and economic ability of subscribers.
Giant telcos in major economies such as the US, Australia, China and Europe had targeted to phase out 3G networks between 2023 and end of 2025.
GSMA now says that telcos face an uphill task in driving the uptake of 4G and 5G networks, mainly due to the costly gadgets that run on the two networks.
“As operators look to retire legacy networks, this reliance on older technology devices could hinder their ability to migrate consumers and businesses to 4G or 5G devices, since many of those may be at risk of losing access when faced with the need to purchase a more expensive 4G or 5G device to continue using mobile internet,” GSMA says.
