Telkom Kenya has officially become the country's smallest mobile network operator, a dramatic fall from grace that highlights how quickly fortunes can change in Africa's competitive telecom landscape.
The operator's subscriber base crashed to approximately 744,500 by December 2025, representing a devastating drop from 1.34 million subscribers in December 2023. Notably, how steep this decline has been - nearly halving its customer base in just 24 months.
According to Communications Authority (CA) data, this collapse happened while the broader market actually grew. Safaricom expanded to 52.3 million subscriptions and Airtel reached 22.3 million, widening their already substantial leads.
Network Performance Behind the Decline
The root cause is painfully clear: network quality issues. CA's quality-of-service data shows Telkom trailing competitors on call stability and availability - critical metrics in a market where most users operate on prepaid plans.
In Kenya's prepaid-dominant environment, customers can switch providers with minimal friction. Even small reliability differences translate quickly into customer churn, especially among price-sensitive users that Airtel targets aggressively.
Infrastructure Crisis Compounds Problems
Behind the network problems lies a more fundamental issue. Telkom's ongoing dispute with American Tower Corporation (ATC) over tower access and outstanding fees has created operational nightmares.
This dispute has threatened site shutdowns and severely limited Telkom's ability to maintain consistent coverage. While competitors continued investing in infrastructure improvements, Telkom found itself fighting just to keep existing services running.
The result is a vicious cycle: weaker service drives subscriber losses, which constrains revenue for further investment, leading to even worse service quality.
Market Positioning Crisis
Perhaps more concerning is Telkom's apparent lack of strategic focus. Safaricom maintains dominance through network reach and its mobile money ecosystem. Airtel combines competitive pricing with improving coverage to attract millions of new users.
Smaller operators have found their niches: Equitel operates as the telecom arm of Equity Bank, while Jamii Telecommunications targets data-driven customer segments. These focused approaches have allowed them to leapfrog Telkom.
What strikes me about this situation is how it reflects a maturing market. Kenya's mobile sector is no longer just about a dominant incumbent versus everyone else. Instead, it is increasingly defined by scale at the top and clear positioning among smaller players.
Telkom's slide suggests that operators without either massive scale or clear differentiation face growing difficulty retaining customers as competition intensifies. The company appears caught between these two successful strategies, with neither the resources to compete on scale nor a distinctive value proposition to defend.
For other African operators watching this unfold, the lesson is stark: network quality and strategic positioning are not optional in today's competitive environment. As we have covered in our AI coverage, technology infrastructure increasingly determines market success across the continent.
Telkom's fall from third to fifth place in just two years serves as a cautionary tale about how quickly market positions can erode without clear strategy and reliable infrastructure.