Safaricom surpasses Airtel in Kenyan 5G sites

Kenya's 5G market is growing and Safaricom has now overtaken Airtel Kenya in the number of active 5G sites it has in the East African country.

Safaricom's recently published annual report for the year ended March 31, 2024, shows it had 803 5G sites across 43 Kenyan counties compared to Airtel's 690 sites covering 39 counties.

Safaricom's 5G sites grew from just 205 sites at the end of March 2023 and Airtel had been leading with 372 sites in mid-2023.

Safaricom said it plans to expand the number of 5G sites in Kenya to more than 1,700 by the end of the next financial year.

"Our aim is to continue increasing the empowerment of our customers with super-fast internet at work, at home and on the move, by supplementing our growing fiber network," the 2024 annual report said.

In a statement in June 2024, Airtel said it was "on an aggressive network expansion drive," with the aim to roll out close to 1,000 sites before the end of 2024.

"This rollout is the biggest ever in Airtel Kenya's operations with the aim of improving indoor coverage in towns and connecting rural areas. The rollout will especially focus on enhancing and deepening Airtel's network coverage in the northeastern region of the country," the telco said.

5G's growth in Kenya

Safaricom was the first to launch 5G in Kenya in October 2022 with just 35 sites and began expanding its coverage across the country.

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa spoke to Connecting Africa in a video interview in late 2023 and said the group planned to add another 700-1,000 sites with an aim of having 2,000 5G sites by the end of 2025.

Airtel Kenya launched its 5G network in July 2023 with around 370 sites at launch and almost doubled that to 690 a year later.

Meanwhile, third-placed operator Telkom Kenya and fourth-placed Jamii Telecommunications (JTL) have not launched 5G yet.

Safaricom is Kenya's biggest mobile operator, with 44.7 million mobile subscribers at the end of March 2024, compared to almost 19.9 million for Airtel Kenya. That's according to market intelligence from Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa.

Telkom Kenya had almost 1.5 million users over the same time frame and JTL had just 545,000 mobile users.

Safaricom has 803 5G sites across 43 Kenyan counties compared to Airtel's 690 sites covering 39 counties. (Source: rawpixel.com on Freepik)

Despite the growth in 5G sites in Kenya, Omdia stats show that only about 1% of all mobile subscriptions in the country were 5G at the end of March 2024. Omdia forecasts that 5G subscriptions will grow to 3.8% of the Kenyan total by the end of 2024 and make up almost 12% by 2026.

Only about 1.3% of Safaricom's user base was using 5G at the end of March 2024, while Airtel only had 0.3% of its users subscribing to the technology.

Over 46% of Safaricom users were 4G subscribers, while over 50% of Airtel's base still used 2G. All of JTL's subscribers were on 4G and Telkom Kenya had 70% 4G users.

Want to know more? Sign up to get the weekly Connecting Africa newsletter direct to your inbox.

Safaricom's annual report showed it had about 669,700 5G devices on its network, a growth of 79% over 12 months, and that overall, smartphones on the network had grown almost 13% to 22.9 million &ndash, with 4G devices making up 16.85 million of those.

* Top image is of Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa at a results presentation in Nairobi, Kenya, in May 2024. (Source: Safaricom)

— Paula Gilbert, Editor, Connecting Africa