Safaricom Ethiopia announces aggressive data price hike amid currency volatility
Safaricom Ethiopia has announced a sweeping 44% average increase in mobile data tariffs, marking its most aggressive pricing adjustment since entering the Ethiopian market about two years ago.
The increase, which took effect in late December 2024, is part of a desperate push by the telco to achieve break-even targets by March 2027 following a massive currency devaluation that has gutted its bottom line.
The price hike affects daily, weekly, and monthly data bundles. Daily bundles have been hit the hardest, with per-unit costs rising between 34% and 67% as the company slashed the amount of data included in entry-level plans. For example, the popular daily 1GB package saw its price rise from 30 Birr to 35 Birr ($0.23) while the data allocation was cut by more than half, effectively doubling the cost per gigabyte for the most price-sensitive users.
Weekly packages have experienced even more drastic shifts, with effective per-unit price increases reaching as high as 82%. This was largely driven by the withdrawal of smaller, lower-priced options, which were replaced by larger, more expensive bundles that require a higher upfront commitment from customers.
Monthly data plans also saw substantial adjustments, with prices rising between 20% and 67% depending on the volume. Meanwhile, unlimited daily, weekly, and monthly packages increased by 20% to 25%, and long-term plans such as quarterly and half-year bundles rose by approximately 21%.
This price adjustment is a direct response to the Ethiopian Birr’s dramatic depreciation. Following the government’s decision to allow the Birr to float freely in mid-2024, the currency lost over 100% of its value against the US Dollar, going from approximately ETB 57 per USD in June 2024 to around ETB 118.99 per USD by September 2024. This rate continued to fall, exceeding 150 birr per dollar by mid-November 2025. For Safaricom, this created a critical financial mismatch because approximately 85% of its capital expenditure (Capex) and 50% of its operating costs (Opex) were denominated in foreign currency (primarily USD). In contrast, all its revenues were earned in the local Ethiopian Birr.
Despite these financial hurdles, Safaricom’s operational growth in Ethiopia remains robust. The subsidiary recently reported explosive 136% growth in its service revenue, which surged to KES 6.2 billion ($48.0 million) for the six months ending September 30, 2025.
The subsidiary, a key part of Safaricom’s group strategy, also successfully narrowed its net loss by 20.1% to KES 15.5 billion ($120.0 million), a sign that the massive-scale investment is beginning to stabilize.
The primary driver of the revenue boom was the massive uptake of core telecom services. Mobile data revenue, the unit’s largest earner, grew by 102.2% to KES 4.1 billion ($31.7 Million). Voice revenue saw an even more dramatic increase of 328.5% to KES 1.4 billion ($10.8 million). This growth was also fueled by an 83.7% jump in Safaricom Ethiopia’s customer base, which now stands at 11.1 million users.
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