Data from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows that last year, Kenyans spend a total of 269 million gigabytes (GBs) of data and consumption is set to rise and hit 984 million GBs in 2022.
The findings are contained in the PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook Report 2018/2022 which put internet advertising revenue at Sh3.8 billion ($38 million) per year, clearly showing just how advertisers are increasingly moving into the online space in search of more consumers.
By the end of September 2018, the total number of active internet and data subscriptions in the country stood at 42.2 million, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) report.
“Digital connectivity plays an important role in transforming and improving lives, as it opens the door to employment, financial opportunities and unprecedented knowledge for billions of people across the globe,” the CA says.
The CA adds that mobile data subscriptions constitute 99.2 per cent of total data and internet subscriptions in Kenya, meaning that a majority of people access the internet even when travelling.
As a result, Kenyan telecommunication firms continue to have a field day. Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telco, made a whopping Sh43 billion ($430 million) for selling mobile and fixed data in the financial year ended March 2018. During that period, mobile data usage per subscriber grew by 56.3 per cent year-on-year to 421 megabytes.
This means the firm was generating Sh4.97 million ($49,700) per hour out of data consumed.
Meanwhile, multiple reports continue to show that most of the activities that drive Kenyans online only consume revenue, offering self-gratification to users but no revenue in return.
A further breakdown of the sites visited by Kenyans shows that information on topics such as sex, football and gambling continue to pre-occupy many online users.
According to the 2019 Financial Access (FinAccess) Household survey, 2.7 per cent of males use mobile money on online betting sites.
“Kenya has two adult websites in its top 10 most-visited sites. This is greater than any other East and Central African country,” the firms adds.
Digital market intelligence platform Similarweb.com also showed that in January, some of the top visited sites in Kenya were Google, Facebook, YouTube, Betin, Betpawa, and SportPesa.
WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and online lending tool Tala were the most downloaded apps in 2018.
