In a press conference held this morning, Safaricom PLC announced its Full Year 2021/2022 results which saw net income increase by 5.4% to KES 72.35 Billion for Safaricom Kenya and declined 1.7% to KES 67.50 Billion including the impact of KES 4.66 Billion financing costs for the Ethiopia business.
The Telco is set to launch commercial operations in Ethiopia within the year as part of the company’s regional expansion efforts to provide world-class telecommunication services to over 112 million Ethiopians.
Speaking during the briefing, Safaricom CEO Mr. Peter Ndegwa said, “We have made significant progress towards a commercial launch. We are engaging with the Ethiopian Communications Authority and other relevant partners about the requirements for ensuring a commercial launch this year.”
Here’s a further breakdown of the results
Safaricom increased its Service Revenue by 12.3% to KES 281.11 Billion and Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) by 13.5% to KES 109.13 Billion.
Voice service revenue grew by 0.8% to KES 83.21 Billion; mobile data revenue grew by 8.1% to KES 48.44 Billion, while M-PESA revenue grew by 30.3% to KES 107.69 Billion. M-PESA, which marked its 15th anniversary this year, hit the 30 million active customer mark in Kenya.
A significant sign of M-PESA’s progress was the 63.4% growth of Lipa na M-PESA merchants to just below 500,000. M-PESA now has over 3.2 million businesses accepting payments under its portfolio, while the M-PESA business app has about 100,000 active businesses.
With the new business strategy and the renewed focus on the customer, Safaricom, in the new Financial Year, plans to accelerate new growth areas, delivering superior customer experience in order to be a purpose-led Technology Company by the end of 2025.
In the Financial Year, Safaricom launched intuitive and innovative new products that directly address specific customer pain points. Such as Nyoosha Shillingi, the mobile data new pricing plan that is giving more value to our customers at no extra cost. Halal Pesa the first Shari’ah-compliant based digital financing product in partnership with the Gulf African Bank powered by M-PESA.
Additional products in the pipeline include Visa virtual card by M-PESA GlobalPay to support international online payments and subject to regulatory approvals, the M-PESA junior product for children who may have access to mobile phones.
