Safaricom hits Ksh.55.3 billion in full-year profit as Collymore announces comeback
Safaricom net profit for the year ended March 2018 grew to Ksh.55.3 billion. This is according to the company’s financial year results released today representing a 14.3 percent growth of its full-year after-tax earnings.
During this same period, M-Pesa revenue increased by 14.2 percent to Ksh 62.9 billion while mobile data revenue also grew by 24.0 percent to Ksh 36.4 billion
M-PESA now contributes 28.0% of Safaricom’s service revenue from 20.9% in FY 2015, highlighting its central position as a key growth driver alongside mobile data, and displacing traditional voice and SMS.
Safaricom’s total customer base also increased by 5.1 percent to 29.6 million while 30-day active M-PESA customers increased by 8.0 percent to 20.5 million.
The telecommunications company says it remained resilient despite the macroeconomic headwinds of a prolonged election period, drought, low credit growth, uncertain regulatory environment and enhanced competitor activity. It says that negative post-election sentiments made voice market share retention a challenge during the September to December 2017 quarter. This was after opposition party NASA called on its supporters to boycott Safaricom products and services. The move came after Raila Odinga, the party leader threatened to call for a boycott of products from corporations the party claims were part of the country’s August 8 poll rigging scheme. Despite this, Safaricom says its overall customer growth momentum remained solid.
Commenting on the results, Safaricom C.E.O Bob Collymore said “To achieve these results we sharpened our focus on putting our customers first, delivering relevant products and services, and organizational effectiveness; a strategy that was exceptionally well executed considering the challenging business climate last year,”
The C.E.O who has been away on medical leave since October last year also announced his return to the helm of the organization. He noted that he was making good progress with his treatment “I look forward to being back in action in Nairobi soon,” Collymore said.
“In FY 2019 we look to drive long-term shareholder value by deploying next-generation network services, leveraging data analytics and segmentation, guided by our purpose of transforming lives to turn innovative ideas into realities,” Sateesh Kamath, Finance Director – Safaricom added.
