Safaricom Ethiopia Total Funding Hits $2.65 Billion as PLC Deepens Stake to 54%
Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia closed the financial year ended 31 March 2026 with total funding of $2.65 billion, a 17% increase from $2.27 billion a year earlier and nearly double the $1.86 billion recorded at March 2024. This is according to figures disclosed during Safaricom PLC’s Full Year 2026 Results announcement on Thursday.
The figure reflects the scale of capital being deployed as Ethiopia evolves into a revenue-generating business. The subsidiary contributed 12.5% to the group’s service revenue growth in FY26, with subscriber numbers climbing to 13.6 million, on a network that now covers 60% of the population across 3,504 sites.
According to Safaricom, equity remains the dominant component at $2.29 billion, up from $2.05 billion in March 2025, but its share of total funding has edged down from roughly 90% to 86% as debt fills the gap. Foreign currency debt doubled over the past year, from $100 million to $234 million, while local currency debt rose from $105 million to $126 million. An $18 million shareholder loan recorded in March 2025 has since been fully repaid, signalling improving liquidity management within the consortium.
The most consequential structural improvement is in deferred vendor payables, which are obligations owed to infrastructure and equipment suppliers previously used to manage cash constraints. Those payables have fallen 70% over two years, from $301 million in March 2024 to $89 million as of March 2026, suggesting that outstanding infrastructure obligations are being settled as commercial scale is reached.
Safaricom PLC’s direct funding contribution to the Ethiopian subsidiary rose to $1.22 billion in March 2026, from $1.06 billion in March 2025 and $840 million in March 2024. Alongside that capital deepening, its shareholding in the Ethiopian entity increased from 51.67% to 54.17%, the first change in ownership structure since the operation launched.
The shift positions Nairobi-listed Safaricom PLC more firmly at the centre of an operation that the broader Global Partnership for Ethiopia consortium, which includes Vodacom, Sumitomo Corporation, British International Investment, and the International Finance Corporation, has committed to investing $8.5 billion in over ten years.
“We are beginning to see the benefits of scale in Ethiopia, with improving commercial momentum and narrowing start-up costs,” said Chairman Adil Khawaja. “This balance, growth, investment, and discipline is exactly what the Board expects at this stage of our journey.”
Group CFO Dilip Pal added that Ethiopia’s reduced losses relative to the prior period provided a meaningful uplift to group-level performance. “We continue to invest in our network and IT systems to support capacity upgrades and user experience,” he said. “We now move into the second year of our Vision 2030 strategy with a commitment to carry on our execution momentum.”
At the group level, Safaricom grew service revenue to almost US$3.2 billion for the year, with Group Net Income reaching US$775 million, and Kenya earnings before interest and tax grew 15.3% to US$1.41 billion.
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