NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 9 – Safaricom net profit for the six months ended September grew to Sh34.2 billion after customers increased spending and a growth in the Ethiopian unit.
This is an improvement from a 10 percent decline in profit after tax to Sh33.5 billion during a similar period last year.
Customers increased spending after the telco slashed prices earlier.
Since 2020, Safaricom has cut data prices, outgoing calls per minute, and the M-Pesa tariff by 65 percent, 44 percent, and 61 percent, respectively.
“We have delivered a great set of results largely by supporting our customers with enhanced value and reduced prices on our products and services,” Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO, said.
“We appreciate that everyone is going through a hard time and are committed as a business to support our customers cope,” Ndegwa added.
“The reduced prices have seen our customers use more of our services hence the double-digit growth in profitability and revenue.”
Increased revenue came at a time when Safaricom Ethiopia rolled out M-Pesa services in the country.
For instance, the Ethiopian unit registered 1.2 million customers on the platform in less than two months.
“This confirms what we have been saying about Ethiopia in terms of how it will significantly support our growth into the future. We are looking to maintain this momentum in the second half of the year,” he said.
In the month of September, Ethiopia’s data usage was higher than Kenya’s, with 4.3 gigabytes per customer compared to 3.7 for Kenya.
“We see more opportunities with M-PESA and mobile data, though coming off a small base. We are particularly impressed with the usage levels in mobile data. Such levels were only realized in Kenya after close to 10 years of operations,” Ndegwa said.
