MILESTONE | Safaricom Becomes First Company to Hit $1 Billion in East Africa with M-PESA Contributing Over 40% Revenue

Kenyan telco, Safaricom, has surpassed the billion-dollar threshold in earnings, the company said in its full-year 2023/2024 earnings report.

According to the firm, earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) for its Kenyan business were KES 139.9 billion ($1.03 billion) for the period ending March 2024.

On a group level, considering the inclusion of startup expenses and investments in Safaricom Ethiopia, the group concluded with an EBIT of KES 94.9 billion ($724.9 million), indicating a year-on-year growth of 3.5%.

“We are extremely pleased with what we have been able to achieve as a group despite the significant start-up costs in our Ethiopia business. We expect that from 2025, Ethiopia will start being a significant growth contributor at group level for both top and bottom line,” Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom PLC CEO said.

• The company saw a revenue increase of 13.4%, reaching KES 335.3 billion ($44.1 million)
• M-PESA accounted for 42.4% of the revenue, amounting to KES 140 billion ($18.4 million)
• The GSM business contributed 52.7% at KES 173.9 billion ($22.9 million)
• M-PESA’s growing profitability was driven by strong performance in B2B (39.8%) and P2P (15.4%) payments and rising uptake of the firm’s global payments platform which rose 20% year-on-year

In Ethiopia, Safaricom has doubled its active customer base to 4.4 million and has established a network that is currently nearly half the size of Kenya’s network.

Despite infrastructure coverage expanding to over 30% of the population and rising M-PESA numbers, the telco has faced challenges including the depreciation of the Ethiopian Birr.

“We are hence pleased with commercial momentum in Ethiopia and proud that we have been able to deliver this momentum with a Safaricom Ethiopia team that is 90% Ethiopians,” said Ndegwa.

Ndegwa noted that the company’s shift towards being a purpose-led technology company was a key factor in investments that enabled it to create more efficiencies and better customer engagement.

“We are able to anticipate and serve our customers more intuitively while engaging our communities to solve their societal challenges. As a result of our razor-sharp focus on our customers, we are now a billion-dollar business in Kenya,” Ndegwa said.

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