Safaricom Kenya has reported a significant increase in its annual revenue for the fiscal year ending in March 2025, reaching $3 billion (388.7 billion Ksh), up from the previous year’s estimated $2.9 billion (385.4 billion Ksh). This represents a significant improvement. Additionally, the business’s yearly profit increased by 11 percent, surpassing analysts’ projections.
The company’s net income for the year was $540 million (69.8 billion Ksh), slightly exceeding the Bloomberg-surveyed estimate of 68.9 billion Ksh.
The largest telecom provider in Kenya reported its full-year earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for the period of 104.1 billion Ksh ($807 million) in a full-year financial report released Friday morning. This was higher than the group’s projected earnings of 94 to 100 billion Ksh.
About Safaricom
Vodacom of South Africa and Vodafone of Britain both own a portion of Safaricom. In countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt, it has over 55 million subscribers, making it one of the top telecom providers in East Africa.
In 2022, it expanded into Ethiopia, with varying degrees of success. Safaricom has had a difficult time in Ethiopia thus far because of security, inflation, and currency issues, even though the company’s expansion into the continent’s second-most populous country portends significant future growth.
Closing Kenya’s digital divide via Lipa Mdogo Mdogo
Since its launch in 2020, Safaricom’s device financing program, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo, has sold over 2 million 4G smartphones, marking yet another noteworthy milestone. The telecom provider pointed out that by making smartphones accessible to low-income consumers through reasonable daily instalments, the programme has played a significant role in closing Kenya’s digital divide.
“Lipa Mdogo Mdogo will help the mwananchi who earn their wages daily acquire a range of smartphones and pay in easy daily instalments for as low as Kshs 20 while enjoying all the benefits that come with being digitally connected,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s CEO, during the launch of the program in 2020.
In 2020, Safaricom launched the device financing plan to encourage the nation’s adoption of 4G by converting users from 2G feature phones to reasonably priced 4G smartphones. In order to include more smartphones in the programme, the telecom company collaborated with manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia, and Transsion.
According to the company, the phones are made to provide users with an amazing smartphone experience, enabling them to access their favourite apps while they’re on the go, conduct business, engage in other activities, find entertainment, and maintain connectivity.
While all of the available smartphones come pre-installed with a suite of Google Apps, such as search, maps, Gmail, and YouTube, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo has been developed in collaboration with Android, Google’s operating system for internet-enabled devices.
Fuel payment via M-PESA
Following the introduction of a new digital payment service that enables users to pay for fuel using M-PESA, Safaricom’s mobile money payment, M-PESA, made a daring statement in African digital payment exploration. The service, which was introduced on Wednesday at the Bole Total Fuel Station in Addis Ababa, allows drivers to use their mobile phones to safely and swiftly pay for fuel.
In addition to offering two access methods—new users register via phone number with SMS verification to create a PIN, and existing users log in with their PIN—the fuel aggregator service gives station attendants a simplified way to handle transactions, keep accurate records, and track payment history.
“This launch marks another milestone in Ethiopia’s digital journey. M-PESA Safaricom is proud to start at Bole Total Station and is working quickly to scale across all 2,000 fuel stations in Ethiopia,” said Elsa Muzzolini, CEO at M-PESA.
About Safaricom’s M-PESA
M-Pesa, one of the biggest mobile money services in Africa, has grown steadily over the years, now operating in more than 170 countries and providing services to more than 70 million users. Over a million businesses and agents now use the mobile financial services provider in the markets where its parent company operates.
Furthermore, the service has more than 100,000 developers on its Daraja platform, which supports more than 55,000 integrations. The platform handles nearly 100 million transactions daily with its current 4000 transactions per second capacity, making it Africa’s largest fintech solution.
As M-PESA marks its 18th anniversary, Safaricom recently announced a $300 million (KSh 40 billion) investment to upgrade its flagship mobile money platform. The “M-PESA 2.0” upgrade is expected to improve system capacity, stability, and customer experience, solidifying its position as a world leader in mobile payment services.
