M-PESA, data push Safaricom’s profit to a record Sh23bn in six months - Capital Business
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In a press statement issued by Safaricom's Board Chairperson Nicholas Nganga, the company said a decision on Collymore's successor had not yet been made/FILE

Kenya

M-PESA, data push Safaricom’s profit to a record Sh23bn in six months

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“96 percent of our customers are on MPESA, so the drive is to get them to use the platform more often” Bob Collymore, CEO, Safaricom.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 4 – Mobile telecommunications company, Safaricom has made a net profit of Sh23.9 billion in six months ending September 30th 2016, buoyed by a strong performance from M-PESA and mobile data products.

The profit marks a 32 percent jump from the Sh18 billion Safaricom made last year, from a revenue of Sh98 billion.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the revenue is a reflection of the company’s strategic focus on improving customer experience, providing relevant products and enhancing operational excellence.

“The big drivers were M-PESA and data. We have invested a lot of money in the last couple of years. Just in the last year, we set up 1000 4G base stations and the uplift you  get on 4G from a mobile handset is significant,” said Collymore.

Safaricom spent 18.9 billion on capital expenditure including ramping up its 2G, 3G and 4G stations to increase network coverage and capacity.

M-PESA revenue grew by 33.7 percent to Sh25.9 billion while mobile data revenue grew at 46 percent to Sh13.4 billion, to sail the mobile telco to new profit heights.

Active M-PESA monthly users stood at 17.6 million in the period under review, making transactions of 9.3 million per month. In total, the M-PESA ecosystem handled 3.2 trillion shillings in six months.

“Our cashless platform, Lipa na M-Pesa, has been well received among enterprises. We had over 50,000 merchants who were active on a 30 day basis as at end fo September 2016,” said a statement from the company.

Appetite for data continued to rise with Safaricom registering saw the highest growth

“We introduced ‘My Data Manager’ functionality which gives customers control to in-bundle browsing. 3 million Kenyans have downloaded the app resulting in a 16 percent saving per user, though bundle users has grown by 38 percent to 7.4 million,” said Collymore.

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Meanwhile, growth in voice and messaging continued to be subdued at 1.1 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. For the first time, non-voice revenue contributed over half of the company’s revenue at 52.3 percent.

In the same period, free cash flow grew to Sh20 billion, a 111 percent, on improved trading results and completion of the National Police Security Network Project.

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