NAIROBI, KENYA, NOVEMBER 2 — Safaricom has reported a half-year net income of Ksh31.50 billion for the period ended September 30, buoyed mainly by a strong growth in mobile money and voice revenues.
This is a 20.2 per cent growth from Ksh26.20 billion registered in a similar period last year.
Despite a tough economic period witnessed in Kenya in the last one year, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed firm recorded strong growth in M-Pesa revenues which went up 18.2 per cent to close at Ksh35.52 billion. This is up from Ksh30.05 billion last year.
Voice service (incoming and outgoing) revenue recorded a minimal growth of 1.4 per cent, but remained a strong earner for the telco bringing in Ksh48.03 billion up from Ksh47.35 billion.
Mobile data revenue grew 10.8 per cent to Ksh19.45 billion from Ksh17.55 billion made in a similar period last year.
Fixed service and other revenues grew Ksh3.9 billion and Ksh2.49 billion respectively with total service revenues closing the period at Ksh118.21 billion, a 7.7 per cent jump from Ksh109.73 billion.
Safaricom has however continued to feel the effects of other messaging platforms mainly Whatsapp, which has eaten into its market share.
During the period, the telco’s earnings from messaging declined by 1.2 per cent to Ksh8.81 billion from Ksh8.92 billion last year.
Total revenue however grew 7.4 per cent to Ksh122.8 billion up from Ksh114.43 billion as the company’s customer numbers increased by 1.5 per cent to 29.9 million.
30-day active M-pesa customer growth was up 8.8 per cent to 21 million while 30-day active mobile data customer grew 3.8 per cent to 17.6 million.
“I am pleased with the progress we made on a number of fronts in the first half of the year. We achieved solid results driven by strong M-Pesa gains, further diversification of our revenue mix to tap into new growth areas and investment in new revenue streams, which contributed to a double digit increase in Earnings Per Share (EPS), and free cash flow,” Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO said, during an investor briefing in Nairobi on Friday.
“We accomplished all this while sustaining investment in our network, which saw us invest Ksh 17 billion in the first half of the year driven by increased network roll out and acceleration of broadband and fibre deployment,” Collymore said.
As part of the company’s 18th anniversary celebrations, Safaricom unveiled a new brand campaign aimed at reinforcing its commitment to customers.
The campaign, dubbed “Nawe Kila Wakati”, is expected to deepen customer engagement by giving access to more affordable voice, data and messaging services.
“In so doing, Safaricom hopes to endear itself to Kenyans as an enabler, a brand that allows customers to communicate, socialize and do business in line with our strategy of putting the customer first and delivering relevant products and services. To deliver on this strategy and ensure that Safaricom is fit for the future, we have embraced the agile way of working. This approach is helping us enhance efficiencies and innovate faster in order to meet rapidly changing customer needs,” Collymore said.
The telco is counting on its DigiFarm ( mobile-based agribusiness solution) platform and E-Commerce platform, Masoko, to revolutionize how farming and business is done online.
