The Deeper Cut: What's Hiding In The Tables of Kenya's Telecoms Data

A mobile-money agent boom, an ISP reshuffle, a satellite operator that already owns a tenth of the fast-broadband tier, and the real author of the quarter's biggest number. Three-quarters of the Communications Authority data is mined beneath the headline numbers.

Headline indicators tell you that a market grew. The tables underneath tell you how, where, and for whom. This report works through the Communications Authority of Kenya's Sector Statistics for Q1–Q3 of FY2025/26 (July 2025 to March 2026), and pulls out 12 findings the headline numbers don't surface. Every figure is the regulator's; every derived ratio is labelled as computed.

Inside:

• Why the quarter's 5.7-million SIM jump was reactivation, not new demand, and the postpaid segment quietly doubling underneath it
• The mobile-money story that isn't about accounts: an agent network growing 4x faster than subscribers
• Safaricom's real monopoly (it's SMS, at 93.9 per cent) and where its dominance is still contestable
• Starlink holding ~10 per cent of the 100Mbps–1Gbps tier off 0.9 per cent of fixed subscriptions
• A capacity glut turning Kenya into a regional transit hub