Over 200,000 SIM cards deactivated as the 15th October deadline nears

The Authority in April this year extended the deadline for subscribers to update their registration details by 15^th October 2022. Mobile operators deactivated 287,214 SIM cards in the three months to June 2022.

The latest sector statistics report released by the Authority today shows that the SIM cards deactivated were those registered using the wrong identification details. Consumers continue to validate their registration details and through the exercise, some have flagged numbers registered in their name without their knowledge.

In the January-March 2022 quarter, 124,689 SIM cards were deactivated as part of efforts to mitigate misuse of SIM cards for criminal intentions. With the deactivation, the active mobile subscriptions declined to 64.7 million in the quarter up from 64.9 million in the preceding period, translating to a mobile (9SIM) penetration of 130.9 percent.

As of 30^th June 2022, there were 59.7 million mobile devices connected to mobile networks with feature phones and smartphones accounting for 32.9 and 26.8 million, respectively. The penetration rates for feature phones and smartphones computed as a percentage of the total population were 66.6 and 54.3 percent, respectively.

The total number of data/Internet subscriptions went up by 2.3 percent to reach 47.6 million, whereas the number of broadband subscriptions recorded a slight drop of 0.5 percent to post 30.1 million. During the period, 3G broadband subscriptions stood at 11.7 million consuming 73.1 million (GB) of data, while the 4G mobile broadband subscriptions consumed 208 million worth of data.

In 2021, mobile services generated revenues of KSh. 315 billion representing a 12.45 percent increase compared to 2020. At the same time, investments in the mobile sub-sector grew by 12.41 percent to stand at KSh. 51.6 billion from KSh. 45.9 billion in 2020.