Kenya’s 4G boom is pushing 2G and 3G closer to retirement by the end of the decade
Kenya’s 2G and 3G phase out is beginning to take shape as the country’s mobile market moves towards 4G and 5G.
A new GSMA and Partnership for Digital Access in Africa roadmap identifies Kenya among 11 African markets targeted for faster migration from legacy networks as part of an ambition to connect one billion people to the internet by 2030. The roadmap does not itself amount to a Kenyan regulatory order to switch off the older networks, but the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that the market is already moving in that direction.
The change is visible in the numbers. 2G subscriptions fell 27.3 percent year on year to about 9.3 million by June 2026, while 3G subscriptions fell 39.2 percent to about 4.5 million. Over the same period, 4G subscriptions rose to about 48.3 million and 5G connections increased to roughly 2.1 million. The contrast is important because it shows that Kenya is not waiting for a future shutdown before users migrate; the migration is already happening through handset purchases, network adoption and changing patterns of data use.
Kenya is already moving away from 2G and 3G
The latest CA sector statistics put total mobile data subscriptions at 64.26 million by June 2026, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier. Mobile broadband accounted for 85.5 percent of those connections, with 4G remaining the most widely adopted broadband technology. The regulator also recorded rising data consumption on 4G and 5G networks while consumption on 3G continued to decline, providing a clearer picture of how customers are using the networks rather than simply how many connections exist.
That distinction matters because the older networks still carry substantial traffic and support a large installed base. A 2G or 3G subscription is not necessarily one person using an old handset, and the CA’s statistics are supply-side data based on returns from licensed operators and service providers. Multiple SIM ownership, connected equipment and other types of mobile connections mean the subscription figures cannot be treated as a direct count of individual Kenyans who would need to replace their phones.
The remaining connections still matter, however. A national network retirement would affect people and organisations that have not yet migrated, along with devices that may have different requirements from conventional smartphones. The CA recorded 2.22 million machine-to-machine subscriptions in June, up 24.1 percent from a year earlier, showing that SIM-based connectivity is also being used by connected equipment and IoT applications.
4G is carrying most of the migration
The most useful way to understand Kenya’s transition is to separate the move away from legacy networks from the rise of 5G. The immediate replacement for much of 2G and 3G is 4G, which has become the dominant mobile broadband technology and now serves a far larger installed base than 5G.
5G has a different role. Its subscriber base remains relatively small, but usage among those connections is much heavier. CA data analysed by TechTrendsKE showed average monthly consumption among 5G users at 64.4GB during the quarter to June, compared with 15.8GB on 4G and 8.3GB on 3G. That does not mean the average Kenyan consumes 64GB every month; it describes the average for the much smaller group using 5G. It does, however, illustrate the capacity requirements created by customers who spend more time on video, cloud applications, large downloads and other data-intensive services.
This helps explain why operators have an economic reason to concentrate investment on newer technologies. Maintaining several generations of mobile infrastructure allows older devices to remain connected, but it also leaves spectrum, equipment and operating resources tied to networks whose usage is falling. As more customers use 4G and 5G, operators have more reason to redirect those resources towards networks carrying growing volumes of data.
The transition does not mean voice has become irrelevant. The CA recorded 126.7 billion minutes of domestic mobile voice traffic during the 2025/26 financial year, up 13.6 percent from the previous year. SMS traffic, meanwhile, fell slightly to 57.1 billion messages, with the regulator attributing the decline partly to the growth of over-the-top messaging services such as WhatsApp. Kenya’s mobile market is therefore still heavily used for traditional communications, even as internet-based services take a larger place in everyday mobile activity.
Smartphones are changing the network equation
The device market makes the migration easier to see. Kenya had 52.26 million smartphones connected to mobile networks by June 2026, compared with 27.42 million feature phones. Smartphones represented about 65.6 percent of the connected mobile-phone base, while feature-phone connections fell during the quarter.
That matters because the smartphone is effectively the gateway between a mobile network and a much wider digital economy. The same connection can support mobile money, video, social media, cloud software, digital government services, online shopping, work applications and AI tools. As smartphones replace feature phones, the value of a connection increasingly depends on its ability to support persistent internet access rather than primarily voice and SMS.
The device transition also explains why a 2G or 3G retirement cannot be treated solely as an engineering exercise. Millions of users may still have handsets that cannot use newer networks, and replacing those devices carries a cost. Kenya’s smartphone market has expanded rapidly, but affordability remains a consideration, particularly for users who rely on basic phones precisely because they are cheaper and can operate for longer on limited resources.
That issue sits at the centre of the wider GSMA roadmap. The organisation estimates Africa’s mobile internet usage gap at about 906 million people, almost 60 percent of the continent’s population, despite much smaller numbers living outside mobile broadband coverage. The roadmap therefore puts affordable smartphones, digital skills, reliable electricity, online safety and useful digital services alongside network investment.
For Kenya, that distinction is important. A person cannot benefit from a 4G network simply because a 4G signal reaches their area if they cannot afford a compatible smartphone, cannot reliably charge it, lacks the skills to use online services or sees little value in paying for mobile data.
Millions of legacy connections remain
The declining 2G and 3G numbers make a future retirement more plausible, but they also show the scale of the migration still required. The 9.3 million 2G and 4.5 million 3G connections reported for June represent a sizeable legacy base even after substantial movement towards newer networks.
The actual users behind those connections will not all have the same needs. Some may be feature-phone owners who need affordable smartphones. Others may be using older devices for voice and SMS because those services are sufficient for their needs. Businesses may have equipment relying on older network technologies, while some machine-to-machine applications could require replacement or reconfiguration before a shutdown.
That makes the timing of any Kenyan switch-off a regulatory and operational question as much as a market one. The GSMA roadmap provides a continental direction and a 2030 ambition, but the Communications Authority would still have to determine how any national retirement should be managed, including network readiness, spectrum use, consumer migration and the treatment of specialised connected devices.
Kenya’s position is different from a market where most customers are still dependent on 2G or 3G. The country’s smartphone and broadband base is already large, and 4G coverage has created a broad platform for migration. The remaining challenge is therefore concentrated around the people and devices that have not yet followed the market’s wider movement.
The wider broadband market is being rebuilt
The mobile network transition is also happening alongside a broader expansion of Kenya’s internet infrastructure. Fixed internet subscriptions reached 2.84 million by June 2026, up 32.4 percent year on year, while fibre connections rose to 1.57 million. Wireless and satellite connections also added to the market, giving homes and businesses more options beyond mobile broadband.
TechTrendsKE’s September coverage of the sector shows the same pattern across the wider infrastructure market: Kenya is adding fibre, expanding international capacity and developing cross-border connectivity while satellite and wireless technologies serve parts of the market where conventional fixed networks are less practical. The ICT Authority has also floated a tender for national backbone and cross-border links under the World Bank-backed Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project.
That broader investment matters because mobile networks do not operate in isolation. A 4G or 5G connection ultimately depends on backhaul, fibre, spectrum, international capacity, electricity and data infrastructure. The more Kenya’s digital economy relies on cloud services, streaming, mobile financial services and other internet applications, the more important those underlying layers become.
The CA recorded 19.43Tbps of utilised international internet bandwidth in the quarter to June, while total fixed internet subscriptions approached 2.84 million. The numbers describe a market that is building capacity across several access technologies at once, rather than simply replacing one generation of mobile radio technology with another.
The 2030 target depends on more than network coverage
The case for retiring 2G and 3G becomes stronger as the installed base moves towards smartphones and 4G, but the final stage will depend on how Kenya handles the people and devices left behind. The GSMA’s roadmap is explicit that Africa’s connectivity challenge extends beyond network coverage, with affordability, energy, digital skills, trust and relevant services all affecting whether people actually use the internet.
For Kenya, the latest CA figures suggest that the market has already done much of the work needed to make a future legacy-network retirement possible. 4G is the dominant broadband platform, smartphone connections have passed 52 million, 3G consumption is falling and 5G is creating a new high-capacity layer.
The remaining task is more practical. Operators and regulators would need to migrate legacy users without cutting off people who cannot yet afford compatible devices, while businesses would need time to replace or upgrade equipment that depends on older networks. The economics of spectrum and network maintenance may favour newer technologies, but the pace of retirement will ultimately depend on whether the users and devices still attached to 2G and 3G have somewhere viable to go.
Kenya is therefore approaching a point where the question is no longer whether its mobile market is moving beyond legacy networks. The data already shows that it is. The question for the next few years is how the country converts that market migration into a managed transition that preserves access while making room for the broadband networks carrying the next generation of Kenya’s digital economy.
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