The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has revealed that LinkedIn ranks last among Kenya’s most popular social media sites.
In the three months leading up to December 2023, just 0.7% of users utilised LinkedIn, which is owned by the US tech giant Microsoft.
LinkedIn’s emphasis on professional networking sets it apart from competing social media sites. Due to its polished appearance, it may come across as less interesting compared to platforms made for more relaxed communication.
This could explain why LinkedIn isn’t as popular as some of its competitors. Worldwide, its monthly active user base is relatively small.
If you believe LinkedIn’s own statistics, the United States has more LinkedIn members than any other country. Roughly 200 million people use it. As a result, 101 million users rank India second.
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How Kenyans use other apps
Social media has an impact on people all over the world, from big cities to small towns. To begin, in 2023, about 22.5% of Kenyans had internet access. By 2028, experts predict that number will have risen to nearly 39 million. With 42.35 million users, Kenya had a substantially higher number of mobile internet users.
Kenya saw a meteoric rise in its social media user base from 2014 to 2023. There were around 3.5 million users in the nation in 2014; by 2023, that number had nearly quadrupled, reaching 10.55 million. However, when compared to the prior two years, it represents a small decline. By far, the most popular social media site is WhatsApp. As of the third quarter of 2023, the chat app had approximately 34% usage, according to the most recent survey data.
About 12.5 percent of people who took the survey said they used the popular video-sharing app TikTok, while 17.5% said they used Facebook and Instagram. Just 0.8% of Facebook users have started using Messenger, which is similar to WhatsApp. In addition, posting comments was the most popular social media activity in Statista’s Global Consumer Survey.
70% said they would comment, compared to 1% who said they would follow or like posts by other users. Only 1% claimed they had never used social media, while 3% indicated they had used it in a passive capacity.
Fewer than 2% of Kenyans use the messaging app Telegram despite the fact that it has over 900 million users worldwide. At the very top of the graph, you can see WhatsApp, a competitor of Telegram.
In May 2023, 3,761,000 Kenyans used LinkedIn, making up 6.4% of the population. However, as of January 2024, 16,457,600 people—55.8% men and 44.2% women—use Facebook, making it the biggest and most popular social media platform in Kenya.
Read also: How to optimise your LinkedIn profile with ChatGPT
In the last quarter of 2023, the most popular social media apps were Facebook and WhatsApp, both of which are owned by Meta. Facebook narrowly defeated WhatsApp to become Kenya’s most popular social media app during the time period in question. During the quarter, 47.5% of Kenyans were Facebook users, and 47.3% were WhatsApp users.
Third with 21.0% was YouTube, which is owned by Google. Instagram (11.3%) and TikTok (17%) rounded out the top five. Meta platforms are expected to maintain their dominance, especially with the recent announcement that Kenyans will soon have the ability to monetize their content on Instagram and Facebook.
Only 7.9% of Kenyans used X, despite the fact that it has experienced major changes under Elon Musk’s leadership, such as the ability to earn from the platform. An increase of 0.2% from the prior quarter.
It should come as no surprise that Google.com, the search engine, was the most popular website in Kenya in 2022. There were 253 million visits to the multinational. X (Twitter) and Facebook received about 30 million and 26 million visits, respectively, while YouTube.com recorded 183 million.