According to the Communications Authority of Kenya, international incoming voice traffic grossed 146 million minutes in the three months to December compared to 204.9 million, representing a drop 28.7 per cent.
Kenyans in the Diaspora have now turned to free internet apps such as whatsapp and skype to communicate with friends and family. Calls to abroad have dropped to 118.9 million minutes from 153.7 million the period under review; the use of the free applications has cut cross-border voice traffic.
Use of Short Message services has also been dominant over the past months and has increased to 32.6 million incoming texts while outgoing texts has increased 14.6 million. The texts continue to grow amid increased popularity in the use of OTT messaging services such as WhatsApp.
The increased data used has seen the use of multimedia SMS service go down since free applications have become the new platforms of sending pictures and short videos.
Young and tech-savvy population is on the rise with the purchase highly-end handsets which are increasing data usage across the country denying telcos cash from voice tariffs.
Internet use in the country stood at 52.3 per cent of the population in December, up from 41.1 per cent in 2012, thanks to data services through 3G networks.