Operator market shares were little changed compared to the previous quarterly report. Safaricom dropped marginally from 64.0 percent of subscribers during the previous period to 63.2 percent at the end of September. Orange Kenya's market share declined by 0.3 percentage points to 10.2 percent, while Airtel Kenya's market share increased to 16.8 percent from 16.5 percent. Essar Telecom (Yu) also increased, to 9.9 percent from 9.0 percent.
The fixed-line sector saw a 5.5 percent decline in the number of lines to 248,300. The uptake of data/internet services continued, with 34.2 percent of the population accessing the internet, mainly via the mobile phone. The number of internet subscriptions rose to 8.5 million from 7.7 million in the previous quarter, representing a 10.2 percent increase. In total, the estimated number of internet users stood at 13.53 million. Despite the increase in internet/data subscriptions during the period, bandwidth utilization only increased marginally by 0.3 percent during the quarter, to 48.3 percent.
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