Social Media Users in Kenya

Kenya’s Digital Landscape

Kenya had 23.35 million internet users as of January 2022. This figure represented 42% of the total population.

Mobile Phone Use in Kenya as of 2022

There were 63.48 million mobile phones in Kenya in January, 2022. However, we must note that some people use more than one mobile phone. They might have one mobile for personal use and the other for work purposes. Hence the reason why the number of mobile phones was higher than the total population.

Monthly Active Social Media Users in Kenya Per Platform

Facebook

Facebook had 12,445,700 users in January of 2022, which represented 21.8% of the total population. With regard to total internet users, Facebook's users represented 53.32% the population. Majority of the users were men, accounting for 56.7%. The largest age group was people aged between 18 and 24 (4,400,000).

Instagram 

Instagram had 2,717,000 users in January, 2022, accounting for 4.8% of the total population. As a proportion of the total internet users, Instagram accounted for  11.65%. Majority of the users were male - 54.2%. The largest age group was 18 -24 (1077200).

People aged 18 to 24 were the largest user group (1 077 200).

LinkedIn

LinkedIn handled 2908000 users in January  2022, which accounted for 5.1% of the population.  With regard to the total internet users, LinkedIn had 12.46% of the population. Users aged between 25 and 34 made up the largest age group (1,800,000).

Youtube

There were 9.29 million users on YouTube in early 2022, representing 15.7% of the population. Males users made up 57.3 % of the total monthly active users whereas female users catered for 42.7%. With regard to the total internet users, YouTube’s users accounted for 39.8 percent.

Snapchat

Snapchat’s total users in January 2022 were 1.75 million, which represented 3.1 % of the entire population. As a percentage of the total internet users, Snapchat had 7.5%.

Considering the fact that snapchat restricts its use to users above 13 years, then the proportion of the entire population climbs to 4.7%. 70% of snap chat users were female and 28.1% male.

Twitter

The total monthly active users on Twitter were 1.35 million in January, 2022, accounting for 2.4% of the total population.

Twitter restricts its use to users aged 13 and above. Therefore, Twitter’s users represented 3.6% of the total eligible population.

With regard to the total internet user base, Twitter users represented 5.8% of the population.

Further Insights

Age groups 21-35 are the most active on professional platforms liked LinkedIn, Skype and Twitter, probably because they are at the stage where they are trying to build their professional lives

Age groups 21-25 are the most active on social media, followed by age groups 26 -35. Probably due to the tech savviness of this age group. 36 - 45 and above 45 are the least active, probably because this age group grew up before the dot com bubble. So if you want to target this age group, then you should probably target them on conventional media like TV and newspaper.

Males dominate females on all platforms, except Tiktok and Snapchat, perhaps due to the aesthetic nature of these apps. So if you want to target women, then it would be advisable to advertise on these platforms.

Facebook accounts for the highest monthly active users across all social media platforms, with 53.32 percent of the total local internet user base. Therefore, it is more lucrative to market on facebook due to their high ad reach.

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