Nyandarua, Nakuru and Laikipia counties have the highest population of residents using borrowed mobile phones in Kenya, a new survey on mobile phone and internet usage shows.
Fresh data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that 22.2 percent of Nyandarua residents use mobile phones borrowed from neighbours, family and friends.
High use of non-owned mobile phones was also registered in Nakuru and Laikipia where residents use borrowed gadgets at 20.9 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively.
“Nationally, 11.3 percent of people use mobile phones they don’t own, with a slight difference observed between males and females,” the statistics office says in a newly published household survey report for 2023/2024.
“Urban areas show a higher reliance on shared or borrowed phones at 11.8 percent, compared to 11.0 percent in rural areas. Nyandarua (22.2 percent) had the highest number of individuals using non-owned phones, while the least was from Bomet (2.0 percent) and Narok (2.0 percent) of residents, who don’t own the gadgets.”
Contrastingly, Bomet and Narok reported the least incidents of phone borrowing among residents at 2.0 percent, followed by Lamu(2.2 percent), Kisii (3.1 percent), Nyamira (3.3 percent) and Kisumu (3.7 percent).
In Nyandarua, the habit of borrowing mobile phones was highest among males (22.5 percent), compared to 22 percent for women. In Nakuru, more females (22 percent) used borrowed mobile phones compared to males at 19.8 percent.
In Laikipia, males dominated the habit of borrowing phones at 21.3 percent, against 20.4 percent for females.
The habit of using borrowed phones for voice calls and texts could indicate the challenges of airtime and data affordability.
For instance, a report for the year ended March 2024 showed that more than half of Safaricom’s voice usage in Kenya was powered by a mix of loaned airtime, freebies, and donations from those receiving calls, underlining affordability woes among many customers.
Voice, whose revenue peaked at Sh95.8 billion for Safaricom in the year ended March 2019, was initially the primary means of communication for Kenyans who bought airtime for their lines in cash at more affordable rates.
The cost of telecommunications services, including mobile internet, has risen significantly over the years, partly due to increased taxation.
This has seen players like Safaricom respond with aggressive promotions and innovations such as allowing subscribers to borrow airtime (through the Okoa Jahazi feature) or talk at the expense of the people they are conversing with (reverse call).
Despite having the highest number of residents using phones they don’t own, the study revealed that Nyandarua had the highest usage rate at 86.1 percent, followed by Nairobi City at 81.3 percent while the least was Tana River at 38.8 percent, and West Pokot at 43.8 percent.
The data shows that Tana River and Turkana counties had the least mobile phone usage at 38.8 percent.
The KNBS study said that nationally, 64.9 percent of the population aged three years and above used a mobile phone in the last three months regardless of ownership, with urban areas having a higher usage rate (76.4percent) compared to rural areas (59.6 percent).
“There was no significant gender difference, as both males and females have nearly the same usage rate. In urban areas, mobile phone usage was higher at 76 percent for females and 76.8 percent for males, while rural areas had lower usage rates at 60.3 percent for males and 59 percent for females,” the survey said.
The report further reveals notable disparities in internet usage across different counties. Nationally, 35 percent of the population used the internet in the last three months preceding the survey, with urban areas (56.5percent) recording a higher penetration rate compared to rural (25 percent).
“Analysis by gender shows that nationally, 37.8 percent of males and 32.2 percent of females used the internet in the last three months preceding the survey. In urban areas, the usage was higher, with 58.4 percent of males and 54.8 percent of females, while in rural areas, usage rates declined to 28.3 percent for males and 21.7 percent for females, indicating a digital divide between urban and rural regions,” the KNBS says.
The counties with the highest internet usage rates are Nairobi City (64.7 percent), and Kiambu (54 percent), while the counties with the lowest penetration rates were West Pokot (9.1 percent) followed by Turkana (12.7 percent).
Sectoral data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), shows that in the year ended June 2024, there were 66.1 million mobile phones in the country, or a 128.3 percent penetration rate, higher than the total population.
This implies that there are Kenyans who own more than one mobile device.
The CA data showed that 35.2 million of the phones were smartphones while 30.9 million were feature phones.
“At the end of the referenced period, the total number of mobile phone devices connected to mobile networks was 66.1 million with a penetration rate of 128.3 percent. The penetration rates for smartphones and feature phones were 68.3 and 59.9 percent respectively,” said the CA.
According to an ICT Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2022, there were several factors affecting the uptake of these devices --employment status, wealth quintile, access to electricity, marital status, and education level among others.
