Pew Research Center findings on mobile usage trends in Kenya.
The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project conducts public opinion surveys around the world on a broad array of subjects ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day.
In the latest research on mobile phone usage globally carried out earlier this year and released yesterday both mobile texting and social networking were found to be popular worldwide. However, of more interest to me were the findings for Kenya where just over 1000 respondents were interviewed face to face nationwide. Here are the results:
Cell Phone Usage
- 74% own a cell phone.
- 98% make phone calls.
- 75% send text messages.
- 50% take pictures or video.
- 23% use the Internet.
Social Networking
- 19% use social media regularly.
- 7% do not use social media.
- 72% do not have access to the Internet.
Usage of Social Networking by Age
- 18 to 29 years: 25%
- 30 to 49 years: 15%
- 50+ years: 6%
- Oldest to youngest gap -19 years
You can also download the full report from the Pew Research Center web site here>
The Author
9 Comments
Moses, thanks again for this insightful information on use of internet and social media in Kenya. One thing am certain of is that we are on the right track with regard to communication.
Wow! Bloggers can use these statistics to give readers (their blog visitors) content targeted to solve their problems and help them.
Thanks Moses for this. Have a good evening.
The statistics on social media usage is a bit shocking. How does this affect social media marketing strategies in terms of numbers, and what does it say about target marketing considering the majority are under 30yrs of age?
Should campaign messages focus on this user demographic? and who are the gainers and losers in the market.
@nick true lots of food for thought.
This simply shows how things are changing in Kenya in terms of mobile penetration.
I’m sure internet usage via mobile phones will keep going up each year.
Its up to businesses to style up and not miss the bus.
how many of these mobile phone users are using smart phones?
@albert good question. I do not know.
what do you think the social media trends are at this stage? do you think if you asked those 1000 people now there would be an increase in the social media numbers?
@ashleigh This would be higher now as Kenya has close to 2 million Facebook users and over 1 million Twitter users.