Nine years ago, Safaricom's home internet business was barely worth mentioning. Today, it is a million-subscriber empire β and Kenya's most dominant fixed broadband player.
Data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) confirms that Safaricom, the country's largest telecoms operator, reached 1,024,950 fixed broadband subscribers by the end of June 2026, making it the first internet service provider in Kenya to break the one-million mark. That figure translates to a 36.1% market share β a commanding lead built on a deliberate, volume-first strategy.
How Safaricom Got Here
The secret, if you can call it that, was not fibre alone. Safaricom leaned heavily on its existing strengths: as of June 2026, the telco controlled almost 70% of Kenya's mobile subscriptions and 88% of mobile money transfers. That dominance gave it a ready-made audience to sell home broadband to, bundled directly into the mobile services millions of Kenyans already used daily.
Products like Family Share let customers link home fibre to mobile data, voice minutes, and SMS β turning broadband into part of a wider Safaricom ecosystem rather than a standalone bill. Switching providers does not just mean finding a new router. It means walking away from bundled mobile benefits, and most customers are not willing to do that.
The commercial logic was equally clear. In April 2026, Safaricom doubled fibre speeds across most residential plans without touching prices. The 15 Mbps plan jumped to 40 Mbps for KES 3,000 ($23) a month, and the 30 Mbps tier doubled to 60 Mbps for KES 4,100 ($32). It was a deliberate sacrifice of short-term margin to lock in market share.
The bet is paying off financially. Fixed services and Internet of Things (IoT) revenue climbed 12.2% to KES 20.2 billion ($156.2 million), driven by that sharp rise in connected homes. And despite the margin compression from cheaper broadband, Safaricom posted record net income of KES 95.6 billion ($738 million) for the financial year ended March 2026.
That said, fibre-to-the-home average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 2.5% year on year to KES 2,297 ($17.73) β a direct consequence of the speed-without-price-hike strategy. The company is trading revenue per customer for raw subscriber volume, and for now, the numbers suggest that trade-off is working.
The Pressure Points Building Up
Reaching a million users is one thing. Keeping them happy β and keeping rivals at bay β is something else entirely.
Safaricom's aggressive data-throttling policy has sparked a growing consumer backlash. Users who hit data thresholds report speed drops that make the headline figures feel misleading, and that frustration is increasingly public. For a brand that built its reputation on reliability, the optics are not great.
At the same time, newly recapitalised competitors are pushing back hard. Barriers to entry in the sector have become steep enough that global telecoms giants are retreating from infrastructure investment altogether β but that is creating space for leaner, focused local rivals rather than clearing the field for Safaricom.
There is also a structural shift quietly reshaping the business. Traditional messaging revenue dropped 11.8% as more Kenyans moved to internet-based communication platforms β the very platforms that Safaricom's own broadband expansion is helping them reach. It is a familiar paradox for big telecoms: the more internet access you sell, the more you accelerate the decline of your older revenue streams.
What Comes Next
Safaricom's million-subscriber milestone is a genuine achievement, and it is one that reshapes how Kenya's broader digital economy develops β more connected homes mean more people accessible to digital services, fintech products, and online platforms that depend on reliable home internet.
But the company now has to defend a dominant position against motivated competitors, manage customer expectations around throttling, and find a way to grow ARPU even as it continues to suppress prices. The volume strategy got Safaricom to the top. Whether it keeps them there is a different question.