Report: Kenya Enjoys Faster Internet Speed Than U.S., Sweden

Kenya has one of the world’s fastest Internet speeds. In fact, the East African country has the fastest Internet speed in all of Africa and much of the Middle East.

With an impressive average data connection speed of 13.7 megabytes per second (mbps), Kenya is almost twice as fast as the global average and well ahead of the United States at 10.7 mbps and Sweden at 13.2 mbps.

According to the latest “State of the Internet” report released by content delivery network Akamai, Kenya ranks 23rd in the world out of the more than 130 countries surveyed for the first quarter of 2017.

The United Kingdom topped the list of countries surveyed with a speed of 26 mbps. Other countries in the top 10 include Germany, France, and Australia, with average speeds of 24.1 mbps, 17.4 mbps, and 15.7 mbps, respectively.

In Africa, South Africa comes in at a distant second with 6.7 mbps, Morocco 5.2 mbps, Nigeria 3.9 mbps, Namibia 2.9 mbps, and Egypt 2 mbps.

According to Nairobi News, Kenya’s ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru expressed satisfaction with his country’s positioning in the latest rankings.

Mucheru attributed the country’s high Internet speeds and connectivity to the successful implementation of the National Broadband Strategy that has provided a clear framework for public-private sector collaboration and partnership.

In recent years, Kenya has made concerted efforts to improve overall Internet connectivity. In 2013, the country launched its National Broadband Strategy to extend fiber optic cables across the country, improve 4G coverage, encourage more local content online, and install ICT centers at universities.

As result of those efforts, broadband penetration now covers as much as 30 percent of the country, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya.

As much as 88 percent of Kenya’s population reportedly access the Internet through their phones and other mobile devices.

Consequently, there has also been an explosion in the numbers of platforms leveraging the widespread Internet coverage.

And today, Kenya also leads the world in mobile banking, with more than a third of the country’s population registered as users on the mobile money platform M-pesa.