Jamii chips at Safaricom, Zuku fixed data market – Business Daily
Jamii Telecom founder Joshua Chepkwoni. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Jamii Telecommunications Limited (JTL) ate into the share of Safaricom and Wananchi Group’s Zuku in the fixed internet market in the year ended June 2022, adding 61,810 new users.
Data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that JTL, which sells its fixed internet through the Faiba brand, raised its share of the market by 3.1 percentage points to 21.9 percent.
Meanwhile, Safaricom’s share fell by 2.4 percentage points to 34.3 percent, and Zuku’s by 1.7 percentage points to 27.9 percent.
The trio dominates the fixed data market, controlling up to 85.1 percent stake, with Poa Internet Kenya controlling 10.3 percent, up from 8.9 percent in June 2021.
In terms of subscribers, the CA data shows that Safaricom added 44,723 connections in the period, taking its total to 314,120, while Zuku added 38,606 to hit 255,906.
JTL’s additional 61,810 users saw its total rise to 200,079, with Poa boasting 94,699 users, up from 65,129 a year earlier. The uptake of fixed internet in the country has been growing since the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, driven by a rise in people working from home during the pandemic.
Many homes were also forced to take up internet due to online schooling when learners were kept home by the disease.
Some also sought connections to access entertainment online during the restriction period, entrenching the trend that has seen streaming services gain prominence due to ease of access on multiple devices and delivering content on demand.
Safaricom first took the top spot in the quarter ending September 2019 from Zuku, but the latter reclaimed dominance in the subsequent quarter ending December 2019.
The giant telco, however, moved ahead once again by mid-2021, riding on an aggressive marketing drive and pricing offers after Covid. It provided its users with double bandwidth, as a way of supporting the government’s call on Kenyans to work from home.
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