Safaricom Plc whirlwind growth has reached new heights with the firm posting a net income growth of 14.4 percent in the last six months.
In a statement to the media, the Safaricom customer base grew by 8.9per cent despite a fresh onslaught from new entrants.
Kenya’s telecommunication giant, Safaricom Plc, is standing strong 26 years later since it was set up.
On Friday, the firm which is a unit of Vodacom Group Ltd announced its half-year net profits for 2019 had jumped 14.4% to Sh35.65 billion ($356.5 million).
During the half year period, M-pesa revenue grew by 18.2% to Sh41.97 billion ($419.7 million) and mobile data revenue increased by 4% to Sh19.78 billion ($197.8 million).
A crackdown on betting companies, which rely on phone-based transactions for operations and at one point forced Safaricom to suspend its paybill number it had issued to the betting firms, is reported to have held the growth of M-Pesa back but despite that its performance was still better than expected.
“Excluding gaming, M-Pesa grew at a very impressive 20.9% year-on-year, which is more impressive than the 18.9% in the previous year,” Chief Financial Officer Sateesh Kamath said.
With the announcement of the new CEO Peter Ndegwa, Kenyans will be eager to see if a Kenyan will sustain the constant growth by the company.
The result means the teleco will retain its position as the most profitable firm in East Africa.
