Telco giant Safaricom successfully connected approximately 107,762 households to its home fibre network in the first six months of the year.
According to Safaricom’s latest annual report, the connections made in the first six months of the year have raised the telco’s home fibre connections to 297,885 households. The telco achieved this by laying out an extra 6,700 Kilometres of fibre, that passed by 297,885 homes in the period under review to add on to the 141,700 Kilometres of fibre it had rolled out by the start of the year. The network expansion similarly saw the telco grow its fibre coverage to reach 2,400 businesses.
“Part of our growth came with challenges including lower speeds due to large downloads and introduction of excise duty tax which necessitated a change in our pricing. We had infrastructure upgrades done in September and October of 2018 to provide additional capacity and address the challenges our home customers experienced. We continue to increase usage through affordable tiered pricing. We see future opportunity in converged service of data, content, smart home and fixed mobile,” said Safaricom in the report.
The network expansion drive by the telco has seen its market share of fixed internet services jump for the seventh consecutive quarter, offsetting the market share of Safaricom’s closest competitor Zuku which is run by Wananchi Group. According to data from the Communication Authority of Kenya, that covers up to March this year, the telco’s market share of fixed internet services increased from 29.6 percent to 31.5 percent in the period under review while Zuku’s fell by three percent to 38 percent.
Safaricom home fibre’s growth has been enhanced by the increased demand for over the top (OTT) services such as Netflix and Iflix by Kenyan consumers. The telco currently offers its fixed internet services for between Ksh. 2,900 and Ksh. 11,499.
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