Fewer Kenyans joining social media as growth rate declines - report

Kenya's social media growth is slowing down, with new data showing a decline in the number of new users compared to the previous year.

The latest Digital 2025 Local Country Headlines Report by Datareportal reveals that active social media users in Kenya grew by 15.9 per cent in 2024, a sharp drop from the 38.2 per cent recorded in the previous year.

The report shows that 2.1 million new social media accounts were created in the past year, bringing the total to 15.1 million.

This is lower than the 3.6 million accounts added the year before, signalling that social media adoption may be reaching a saturation point.

Despite the slowdown in social media growth, internet penetration continued to rise, with 527,000 new users coming online compared to 445,000 in the previous period.

By February 2025, social media users accounted for 26.5 per cent of Kenya’s population, up from 23.5 per cent the year before.

“Social media user identities may not represent unique individuals,” Datareportal noted in the report.

Mobile connections

Meanwhile, cellular mobile connections grew at a faster rate of 3.5 per cent, reaching 68.8 million, up from a 2.8 per cent increase in the previous year, which had brought the total to 66.04 million.

This pushed mobile penetration to 121 per cent, compared to 118.7 per cent in the preceding period.

A separate report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) indicates that as of December 2024, Facebook remained the most popular social media platform, with 57.1 per cent of users.

WhatsApp followed at 54.4 per cent, while TikTok and YouTube had 29.5 per cent and 26.2 per cent, respectively. Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) recorded popularity rates of 12.9 per cent and 12.2 per cent.

“Facebook and WhatsApp are the most popular social media platforms in Kenya, followed by TikTok and YouTube in third and fourth place. The frequent mention of Facebook and WhatsApp shows how widely they are used and how influential they are in Kenya's digital space,” the CA stated in its latest Audience Measurement and Industry Trends report.

The report also highlights that mobile phones remain the primary access point for social media, reinforcing their role in digital communication and media consumption in the country.

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