Kenya overtakes Nigeria to lead globally in mobile internet traffic share

At 83 per cent, Kenya now stands at the top, with Nigeria coming in second at 81 per cent, according to Online shop, Jumia Mobile Week White Paper – 2018.

“Global mobile internet traffic as of the fourth quarter of 2017 is up 11.65 per cent year on year and currently stands at 51.12 per cent of global web traffic originating from smartphones. Kenya is the global leader in share of internet traffic coming from mobile (overtaking Nigeria in 2017), at 83 per cent,” Jumia Kenya said in the report.

The country’s performance is attributed to affordable data bundles and high level of smartphones penetration rate which currently stands at 41 million (+3 per cent), with reach at 90.4 per cent of the adult population, having surpassed the 40 million mobile subscriptions in 2017.

"Reflecting the same trend, Jumia Kenya for the first time ever in 2018, has seen more orders coming from mobile devices (mobile web and app) than desktop. The majority of traffic to the website continues to come from mobile devices (mobile web + app), but historically conversion rates were lower than on desktops,” said Jumia Kenya.

In the marketplace report released last week Jumia said that the high mobile penetration has been driven by the entry of aggressive firms, such as Hong Kong-based Transsion Holdings.

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Transsion is the largest smartphone company by sales in Africa, and some of its brands include Tecno Mobile, Itel and infinix.

According to Jumia Kenya, Transsion continued to hold the top spot during the fourth quarter of 2017 in a report released by International Data Corporation (IDC) as the biggest smartphone and feature phone vendor in Kenya with a staggering 58 per cent and 63 per cent market share respectively by volume.

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Whilst Tecno and Infinix dominate the smartphone segment, Tenco and Itel lead the feature phone segment.

Samsung has a 17 per cent market share by volume driven by its economically priced J-series.

Globally, some of other leading countries with large share of mobile internet traffic include; India (79 per cent), Singapore (78 per cent), Ghana (75 per cent), Indonesia (72 per cent), South Africa (71 per cent), Thailand (69 per cent), Saudi Arabia (64 per cent), Turkey (62 per cent), China (61 per cent), UAE (61 per cent), Poland (59 per cent), Malaysia (57 per cent), and the rest of the world at 52 per cent.