Safaricom’s SMS Traffic Declines To 5.9 billion As Other Mobile Operators Record An Increase In SMS Traffic

Everybody prefers sending an SMS since calling is quit expensive. Conversations have been reduced to symbols, written words and Emojis. The total number of SMS sent has maintained an upward trend regardless of the stiff competition from OTTs. Statistics released by Communications Authority of Kenya provides that, local SMS traffic stood at 6.57billion up from 6.55 billion messages reported in the previous quarter. Similarly, the volume of SMS sent throughout the year grew significantly to 27.4 billion up from 24.4 billion messages sent during the previous year. This could be attributed to the lowering of SMS tariff and provision of lucrative SMS bundles by a majority of mobile operators.

SMS traffic by Safaricom Limited declined to 5.9 billion from 6.0 billion messages sent during the last quarter. Its SMS market share declined by 1.3 percentage points to stand at 90.3 percent during the quarter under review. Safaricom’s annual SMS traffic gained by 8.3 percent to post 25.4 billion up from 23.5 billion messages sent during the previous year.

Also read:Equitel is the solution to M-PESA’s inflated tariffs

Telkom (Orange) experienced a significant increase in SMS traffic during the quarter to post 104.6 million messages up from 85.7 million messages posted last quarter. This represents 1.6 per cent market share during the quarter compared to 1.3 per cent in the previous quarter. The annual traffic volume grew 3-fold to stand at 316 million.

Equitel Limited registered 6.0 million messages during the quarter and retained its market share of 0.1 percent. Equitel is slowly making progress and it will one day out compete other mobile operators. Equitel’s SIM is ideally meant to give MPESA a tight competition. Apparently, Equitel’s services are amazing. Equity customers can now carryout all the transactions straight from their phones. The fact that Equitel registered 6.0 million messages, it implies that people love using the SIM.

Besides SMS, roaming-out voice traffic stood at 26.5 million minutes. Roaming traffic within EAC countries contributed to 23.3 million minutes while non-EAC countries contributed 3.1 million minutes. In the same way, the total number of roaming out messages was registered at 8.3 million and EAC countries contributed 4.8 million messages. The total roaming out data stood at 2.3 million MB.

Roaming-in voice traffic registered a total of 19.5 million minutes during the period under review. EAC countries contributed 15.6 million minutes while non-EAC countries contributed 3.9 million minutes. Similarly, the total number of roaming out messages was registered at 7.7 million messages with EAC countries contributing 2.6million messages. The roaming in data traffic stood at 4.4 million MB.

Also read:Safaricom Lost Its Market Share In Mobile Voice Traffic By 3.8 Percent Due To Increased Competition

Erick Vateta564 Posts

--- Erick Vateta is a lawyer by training, poet, script and creative writer by talent, a model, and tech enthusiast. He covers International tech trends, data security and cyber attacks.

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