The rates of mobile (SIM) subscriptions have grown from 69.9 million in September 2024 to 78.3 million, marking a penetration rate of 149.4 per cent as of 30th September 2025, according to the report published by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).

This growth is mainly attributed to the continued expansion of mobile networks and ever-growing demand for mobile services.

Safaricom is still leading with the number of mobile subscribers at 51million followed by Airtel at 24million and Telcom which has 868,788 subscribers. 

Additionally, Safaricom PLC has maintained the highest market shares across mobile subscriptions, mobile broadband and mobile money at 65.3%, 62.7% and 89.7% respectively.

The rate of mobile money subscriptions has risen from 40.6million is September 2024 to 48.6m in September 2025.

Mobile data subscriptions were recorded at 60.2 million by end of the first quarter of the current financial year, out of which 78.3 % were on mobile broadband. 

Notably, 4G subscriptions constituted 84.8 % of the total mobile broadband subscriptions. Data consumption across 4G and 5G technologies continued to grow while 3G maintained a downward trend. 

By end of September 2025, the total mobile phones connected to mobile networks was 75.0 million, translating to a penetration rate of 143.1%, out of which 59.5% were smartphones.

The report further reveals that the total domestic voice minutes were recorded at 29.9 billion during the reference period compared to 29.1 billion minutes in the previous period. SMS traffic declined to 14.7 billion from 15.2 billion messages.

The average on-net and off-net call durations were recorded at 1.9 and 1.3 minutes, respectively, during the reference period. 

Airtel customers recorded the longest average on-net call duration at 3.1 minutes, while Jamii Telecom registered the longest average off-net call duration at 1.7 minutes. 

Minutes of Use per subscription per month increased to 127.5 from 126.5 minutes reported during the preceding quarter whereas short messages per subscription dropped to 62.4 from 66.3 messages.

International incoming mobile voice traffic declined by 0.7% to 115.2 million, whereas outgoing traffic grew by 10.3% to 220.9 million minutes. 

International incoming and outgoing SMS declined by 3.4 and 6.2 % to post 5.4 million and 2.5 million messages respectively. This decline is attributed to the increasing uptake of internet supported messaging services.