A couple of days ago, Facebook Africa released a slew of statistics pertaining to the social media behemoth’s uptake in Africa. In a nutshell, Facebook is HUGE in Africa as expected. In Kenya specifically, the numbers that were shared as of June 2015 were as follows:

• 2.2 million total daily active users (DAUs)
• 2.1 million mobile DAU
• 4.5 million total monthly active users (MAUs)
• 4.3 million mobile MAUs (95% of MAUs)

Prima facie, the numbers tell the expected story – that Facebook is doing quite nicely in Kenya, as it has always has done? In addition, also as expected, the majority of Facebook users in Kenya go online via mobile devices.

However, I thought it would be interesting to further analyse exactly how Facebook’s mobile users are broken down using various perspectives? In order to do so, I used Facebook’s ad campaign planner and was able to find out the following:

• As of this writing, Facebook has a total of 4.9 million users in Kenya up from the reported 4.5 million in June 2015. This means that Facebook is growing at a rate of approximately 200,000 users per month in Kenya which is no mean feat, whichever way you look at it!
• Facebook users in Kenya are broken down as 4 million mobile users and 900,000 desktop users according to Facebook’s ad campaign planner. This seems to contradict the numbers announced from June 2015 in that it would mean currently desktop users are 18% whilst mobile users are 81%.
• In terms of the mobile operating systems being used by Facebook’s mobile users, iOS (Apple) accounts for 93,000, Google’s Android accounts for an impressive 2.4 million whilst Microsoft’s Windows Phone accounts for only 52,000.
• The split between smartphone and feature phone Facebook mobile users was a little surprising in that smartphone uses are the majority at 2.5 million users whereas feature phone user are significantly less at 620,000. This means that smartphones are now the overwhelming majority when it comes to mobile users on Facebook in Kenya.
• Where Internet connectivity is concerned for Facebook mobile users in Kenya, the largest type of connectivity is 3G with 3,5 million users, followed by 2G at 710,000, then WiFi at a pretty large 160,000 and finally 4G with only 4,800 users.

So, In nutshell, there you have it. This is how Facebook’s odd 4 million mobile users in Kenya stack up from various angles. The three main themes that standout for me are that smartphone usage dominates, Google’s Android is the largest mobile operating system, and 3G is the main form of Internet connectivity to Facebook in Kenya.