More than 40,000 babies own mobile phones.
According to the 2019 Kenya National Population and Housing Census statistics that were released on Friday, 75,064 children in Nairobi aged below four years have mobile phones.
The country has 20,694,315 mobile phones.
Highest number
The capital city is leading not only with the highest number of mobile phones which stand at 2,772,719 gadgets, but has also bought the highest number for children aged 3 to 4 years.
A similar trend was detected in Mombasa where 1,472 children who are aged between three and four years already own mobile phones. Parents in Kisumu too have gifted their babies with the communication gadgets. A total of 858 babies had mobile phones at the lake city while in Nyeri, the figure stood at 754.
At the same time, an additional 21,773 children between the ages of 5 and 9 in Nairobi have mobile phones while the number rises to 688,099 among youth between 15 and 24 years.
It has also emerged that of the 20 million Kenyans who own mobile phones, 9,869,962 used the internet while those who have laptops and tablets are 4.5 million.
The idea of online shopping in the country is also gaining traction as some 1,2 49,133 Kenyans have bought goods online.
A look at the statistics further shows there are 679,402 mobile phones in Mombasa while Kilifi has 520,866. Lamu has only 59,256, less than half of mobile phones in Mandera, which has 1296,119 gadgets.
Analogue to digital
Other areas with high concentration of mobile phone owners in the country are Machakos with 748,673, Meru (723,172) Kakamega (708,902) Kisumu (524,515) and Nyeri (454,881).
Although Kenya migrated from analogue to digital television five years ago, a total of 566,021 households are still using the outdated sets in a country where 4.8 million homes have TVs.
The census also found out that more than half of Kenyans (6.8 million homes) have radios, although only a paltry 8.8 per cent of the population - 1.059 million homes - have desktops, laptops or tablets.
At the same time 758,710 households (6.3 per cent) have cars, while homes with refrigerators are slightly higher, at 1,059,785.
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The number of homes with motorcycles are 1,107,773 compared to 1,806,452 which have bicycles.
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