A couple of weeks ago I walked into a Text Book Centre (TBC) branch at a Nairobi mall and found Starlink terminals on sale which was somewhat unexpected. Quietly. Unremarkably. On a shelf next to TP-Link routers. The Starlink Mini was selling for KES 27,000 and the Starlink Standard Gen 3 at KES 49,900, via an authorized reseller partnership with Redington Distribution, a leading distributor of technology products in Kenya and across Africa.

Meanwhile, according to the latest Communications Authority’s Q2 FY2025/26 data (December 2025), it shows Starlink at 22,282 fixed internet subscribers and 0.9% of Kenya’s total 2,461,981 fixed internet subscriptions. Safaricom sits at 34.9%, JTL Faiba at 20.1%, Poa Internet at 10.7%. The much hyped and expected(?) Kenya internet market disruption, quite simply, never happened, at least not as expected.

So, what happened after all? The incumbents — perhaps alarmed by the Starlink threat — responded aggressively: faster speeds, better pricing, and broader coverage. Interestingly, Kenya’s fixed internet market grew an impressive 85% in two years. In a nutshell, consumers won and the competitive pressure that Starlink brought to Kenya’s internet market was a good thing after all for everyone.

As it also turns out, the satellite segment — of which Starlink is the dominant player — recorded 13.9% quarterly subscriber growth in Q2 FY2025/26. Not disruption. Not failure either. Instead, quiet, steady, and decent growth, mostly in the parts of Kenya where Starlink actually excels: rural households, remote businesses, NGOs, schools, lodges, and tented camps in underserved areas where conventional internet access does not exist.

The TBC and Redington partnership is Starlink doubling down on that reality — deepening retail distribution to reach the mainstream market beyond early adopters. The subscription packages have also grown with residential plans from KES 1,300/month for 50GB up to KES 6,500/month unlimited, Local Priority business plans to KES 34,600/month, Global Priority enterprise plans to KES 343,000/month. This is a clearly an expanded value proposition.

In other Starlink updates, last month, Airtel Africa and SpaceX successfully tested Starlink Direct-to-Cell in Kenya — standard 4G phones connected to satellites in dead zones, with no dish, no hardware, and even completed Airtel Money transactions. This, in itself, is yet another different proposition from everything before it, and it suggests a future where consumers in underserved parts of Kenya can finally get connected through the phones already in their hands.

Ultimately, Starlink did not disrupt Kenya’s internet market. It transformed it — and in the places that needed it most. Therefore, from this perspective, and to some extent, Starlink did actually disrupt Kenya’s internet market where it mattered the most.