Kenyan operator Yu, which is owned by India’s Essar Group, has thrown in the towel with the sale of its subscribers and network to rivals.

The operator is being sold to rivals Safaricom and Airtel for about $100 million, according to the Sunday Nation.

Under the terms of the deal, Safaricom will inherit Yu’s network while Airtel takes on its 2.7 million connections.

However, even with the new additions to Airtel, the balance of power in the Kenyan market still drastically favours Safaricom, which holds an overwhelming two-thirds market share.

Post-Yu takeover, Airtel will have approximately 8.45 million connections which leaves it trailing substantially behind Safaricom’s 21.5 million figure (GSMA Intelligence Q4 2013 figures).

The country’s fourth operator – Orange – has just 2.3 million connections.

Acquiring additional infrastructure should enable Safaricom to improve network quality.

Essar is also exiting from other interests in Kenya. It is selling a 50 per cent stake in Kenya Refineries to the government in a deal that closed last month.

Safaricom and Airtel met at the end of last week with the country’s regulator Communications Commission of Kenya to clear the acquisition of Yu.