Written by Kennedy Kangethe | From Capital FM

Kenya’s mobile phone subscriptions grew by 5.6 percent over the last one year to stand at 32.2 million at the end of the 2013/2014 financial year fourth quarter, translating into a mobile penetration level of 79.2 percent.

The number of new subscriptions registered during the period was 416,390.

The Quarterly Sector Statistics Report for the period April to June 2014 attributes the growth to increasing demand for various mobile services and value added services across the country.

Safaricom still holds the largest market share at 68 percent with over 21.9 million subscribers followed by Airtel Kenya at 16 percent market share with over five million subscribers.

Despite the growth in mobile subscriptions, the total mobile voice traffic declined by 4 percent during the quarter to register 7.3 billion minutes down from 7.6 billion minutes in the last quarter.

Pre-paid subscriptions increased by 1.1 percent to post 31.5 million subscriptions from 31.2 million during the last quarter while post-paid subscriptions grew by 9.6 percent to reach 665,697 compared to 607,569 recorded during the last quarter.

“The post-paid service exhibited significant growth during the year; this could be attributed to the socio- economic disposition of the mass market which highly influences preferences. Nonetheless, pre-paid subscriptions formed the largest share of the total subscriptions base, contributing 98 percent,” the report stated.

Read more at Capital FM