Kenya - Over half mobile subscribers have two or more SIM cards makes it hard to know how many users there really are

Business daily - Nairobi] For years, I have suspected something was seriously amiss with the number of mobile phone subscribers in this country.

Something just didn't add up. Apparently, as of the July 30 deadline, just over 11 million people had registered their lines.

This flies in the face of official statistics, which at last count placed the number of mobile subscribers in the country at well over 16 million.

Which is why I have felt just a little vindicated by some of the numbers that are coming out of the SIM registration process.

Kenya does not have 16 million mobile phone users - and we never have.

For the last ten years, it has been hard to get a straight answer out of our mobile operators on just how many active subscribers they have on their rosters.

If they do not bamboozle you with the numerous methods they use to define an active subscriber, they will throw enough industry jargon to make you wish you had never queried their numbers in the first place.

Some operators define their base by the number of available lines they have - regardless whether those lines are sitting on a counter in downtown Kisumu waiting to be bought or whether they are actually in a mobile handset, being used on a daily basis.

Of those SIMs that are actually in use in mobile phones, operators have at their disposal a menu of choices to define what an active subscriber is.

There are those who have accessed the network within the last 90 days, while some operators prefer to use those who have made or received a call in the last 60 days as their measure.

A select few will record just those who have actually made a number of calls in the last 30 days, and this is the number they will typically submit if they have to report to an international shareholder.

Regardless, it is not unusual if this number varies from what will be reported locally.

As a journalist, it's a grey area that really makes one feel like they've let the team down.

Which other industry allows its players to tell you how the business is doing without allowing for the use of some objective measure or a recognized audit?

Logically, the onus of sorting the wheat from the chaff should fall upon the industry regulator, the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), but they are no better than the operators they monitor.

CCK trustingly accepts figures reported by industry players, and from most appearances, does not bother to verify if they are indeed true.

But the results from the SIM registration process tell a different story.

Kenya being a dual-SIM market (where over half the subscriber base owns two or more lines), it could be argued that the figures do not tally because most consumers did not bother to register all lines.

While the registration process is not complete, it does raise pertinent questions on the standards Kenyan mobile firms use to report their subscriber numbers - especially in view of the fact that two of the firms are owned by local shareholders, and that active subscribers should translate to more revenues.

How Many Phone Subscribers are There Really?