Kenyans dump 800,000 feature phones in a year
Kenyans ditched active use of 800,000 feature phones in the 12 months to June in favour of smartphones.
What you need to know:
- Most feature phones can perform basic functions such as making calls, sending text messages, and playing music.
- Some customers, however, prefer to own both feature phones and smartphones to serve their personal and business needs
Kenyans ditched active use of 800,000 feature phones in the 12 months to June in favour of smartphones, which offer a wider array of functions such as internet connectivity, according to a new report.
Latest figures from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) show the number of feature phones fell by 2.4 per cent in the year to June 2023 to 32.1 million from 32.9 million phones in the previous year.
In contrast, the number of smartphones in used grew by 15 per cent during the same period to 30.8 million up from 26.8 million in the previous year, an increase of over four million gadgets. In total, the number of mobile devices being used by Kenyans grew from 59.7 million to 62.9 million translating to a mobile penetration rate of 124 per cent, a slight increase from a penetration of 121 per cent.
“Total number of mobile phone devices connected to mobile networks stood at 62.9 million with a penetration rate of 124.4 per cent. The penetration rates for feature phones and smartphones were 63.5 and 60.9 per cent, respectively,” said CA.
Most feature phones can perform basic functions such as making calls, sending text messages, and playing music, and are cheaper than smartphones but lack the complex capabilities of smartphones. Some customers, however, prefer to own both feature phones and smartphones to serve their personal and business needs.
The growing shift to smartphones in Kenya shows consumers are going for gadgets to enjoy their capabilities, especially internet connectivity.
Local demand for the internet has grown rapidly in recent years, and in the period under review, the total used international bandwidth increased by 19.2 per cent to 9.6 million Gbps up from 8.1 million Gbps in the previous year. At the same time, active mobile (SIM) subscriptions grew by 0.6 per cent to record 66.4 million as of June 30, 2023, from 66.1 million recorded last quarter, according to the CA data. This translated to a SIM penetration rate of 131.3 per cent.
“The slow growth in mobile subscriptions during the year is attributed to the SIM registration exercise that kicked off in February 2022 with a deadline of October 2022 which resulted in the deactivation of unregistered SIM cards,” said CA.
Demand for mobile devices has, however, been hit by a sharp rise in prices which has been exacerbated by slump of the Kenyan shilling against the US dollar.
Kenya's smartphone imports fell by 13.5 per cent in the three months to December last year compared to the same quarter in 2021, according to data released by International Data Corporation (IDC) in March.
