TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Kenya urged to raise mobile competition against Safaricom
The Communications Authority of Kenya is finalising an industry study on the dearth of players in the market
Kenya’s telecommunications regulator should find new ways to stimulate competition in the mobile market, which is dominated by Vodacom’s associate company Safaricom, Fitch’s BMI Research says. "We believe Safaricom’s dominance of telecoms and mobile money services will continue to limit other operators’ ventures in the Kenyan telecoms market…. The regulator must find other ways to encourage competition," BMI said in a research note. Vodacom bought a 35% stake in Safaricom for about R35bn in 2017. At last count, Safaricom had a 72.6% share of the mobile market in Kenya, while its mobile money service, M-Pesa, had a market share of 80.6%, according to BMI. The issue of competition — or the lack thereof — in Kenya’s telecommunications market has been in the public domain for some time. The Communications Authority of Kenya is finalising an industry study of the matter. Reports surfaced in 2017 that the authority might instruct a breakup of Safaricom, in terms of which the company’s cor...
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