Mobile Operators Mute SIM Cards With Wrong Identification Details

A report shows, mobile operators deactivated 287,214 SIM cards in the three months to June registered using wrong identification details.

This comes just days before the October 15 deadline set by the authority for subscribers to validate their registration details.

“During the Financial Year 2021/22, the mobile telephone service sub-sector was marked by a significant regulatory intervention that involved updating the registration details of all SIM cards in the country,” The Communications Authority of Kenya’s (CA) quarterly report shows.

“This exercise resulted to deactivation of SIM cards registered under the wrong identification details… Subsequently, active mobile subscriptions declined to 64.7 million in the fourth quarter from 64.9 million recorded during the previous quarter,” reads the report in part.

In the January-March quarter, 124,689 SIM cards were deactivated as part of efforts to mitigate against criminal misuse. The mobile penetration rate in the country stood at 130.9 percent, a decline from 133.6 percent in 2021.

The report by CA shows that the number of mobile money subscriptions stood at 37.3 million, representing a penetration level of 75.3 percent. In the period, there were 1.1 billion person-to-person transfers amounting to Ksh1.1 trillion while the value of deposits stood at Ksh1.4 trillion.

In 2021, mobile services generated revenues amounting to Ksh315 billion representing a 12.45 percent increase compared to 2020. Investments in the mobile sub-sector on the other hand grew 12.41 to stand at Ksh51.6 billion from Ksh45.9 billion in 2020.

The penetration levels of feature phones and smartphones stood at 66.6 percent and 54.3 percent respectively.

The report shows that the total number of internet subscriptions went up by 2.3 percent to stand at 47.6 million whereas the number of broadband subscriptions recorded a slight drop of 0.5 percent to post 30.1 million.