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Safaricom CEO, Bob Collymore (center) speaks during the Safaricom half year results announcement. Alongside Bob is Chairman, Nicholas Nganga, and Sateesh Kamath, Safaricom CFO.
Mpesa Growth Pushes Safaricom Earnings by 20% to Sh 31.5Bn
Kenya’s largest telco Safaricom has reported its half-year results for the period ended September 2018 with net profit rising by 20.2% to Sh 31.5 Billion.
Total service revenue for the period rose by 7.7% to Sh 118 Billion largely driven by Mpesa whose revenues grew by 18.2 % to Sh 35.5 Billion. Voice, which accounts for nearly 40% of the telco’s revenues, grew slightly by 1.4% to Sh 48 Billion.
“During the first six months of the year, M-PESA was the main driver of growth, contributing 64% of service revenue growth, further accelerating displacement of traditional voice and messaging services.” Safaricom Chief Executive Bob Collymore said.
Mobile data revenue increased by 10.8% to Sh 19.5 Billion while messaging revenue declined by 1.2% to Sh 8.8 Billion. Fixed data revenue increased by 21% to Sh 3.9 Billion.
The telco’s customer base increased by 1.5% to 29.94 Million while30-day active M-PESA customers increasing by 8.8% to 21 Million.
“We continue to leverage the power of mobile technology and diversify our sales mix with M-PESA now accounting for 30% of total service revenue, up 3 points year on year. We are excited about the future prospects of portfolio expansion and diversification.” Bob Collymore noted.