Starlink slips further to 9th place in Kenya’s fixed internet market

American satellite internet firm Starlink has slid to ninth place in Kenya’s fixed internet market, latest Communications Authority (CA) statistics for Q4 of the 2024/2025 financial year show.

The satellite provider, owned by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, recorded 17,425 subscriptions in June 2025, representing a 0.8 per cent market share.

While this marks a slight increase in user numbers from 17,066 in March 2025 (Q3), when it was ranked eighth, its ranking fell as competitors outpaced its growth.

It now trails behind established local players such as Safaricom, Jamii Telecommunications, Wananchi Group, and Poa Internet.

Starlink launched in Kenya in July 2023. Its better speed and increasingly competitively-priced packages – such as lowering hardware costs from the initial Ksh.74,000 to Ksh.29,000, plus a kit rental option – saw it quickly rise to be among the country’s ten largest ISPs.

Last September, the company even locally unveiled its more affordable Mini variety priced at Ksh.27,000.

Even so, freezes on new customer subscriptions in the past year due to network capacity overload have slowed its uptake.

For instance, the company only resumed new customer subscriptions in Nairobi and neighbouring Kiambu, Machakos, Kajiado, and Murang’a counties in June after a November 2024 halt.

In the meantime, market leader Safaricom has expanded its dominance, growing subscriptions from 678,118 in Q3 to 735,749 in Q4, although its market share slid from 36.5 to 34.3 per cent.

Jamii Telecommunications followed with 442,076 subscriptions (20.6%), while Wananchi Group and Poa Internet were nearly tied at 12.7 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively.

Other players included Ahadi Wireless, a newcomer in the top 10 list at 7.5% percent, Vilcom Network (4.1%), and Mawingu Networks (3.6%).

Smaller operators such as Dimension Data Solutions East Africa (0.9%) and Liquid Telecommunications Kenya (0.8%) also maintained modest market shares.