Kenya expected to reach 30.5 million subscribers by 2014

Kenya is forecast to be one of the fastest growing telecoms markets in Africa and Middle East from now until 2014, with mobile subscribers increasing from 18.7 million at year-end 2009 to 30.5 million, states a new report from Pyramid Research. This would represent a mobile penetrate rate in 2014 of 68 per cent, expected to be strongly driven by mobile data services and specifically mobile banking.

Kenya’s market revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.1 percent in the 2009-2012 period, exceeding the expected growth of Turkey and Saudi Arabia and approaching those of Nigeria and Egypt, notes Deniss Radcenko, Pyramid Research analyst and author of the report.

As the economy recovers in 2010, Pyramid expects the increasing adoption of new services will result in stronger total revenue growth, reaching more than US$1.6 billion in 2014. Driven by the expansion of data services, particularly mobile banking services such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa, the mobile market will expand to US$1.4 billion in 2014.

Broadband Internet services revenue is also expected to grow over the next five years, generating US$76 million in 2014, up from US$20.6 million in 2009, a CAGR of 30 percent.