Safaricom scraps M-Pesa charges as profit soars

Safaricom has reported net profit of Ksh23.9 billion in the six months to September 30, a 32 per cent jump compared to similar period last year. Revenue from its mobile money service, known as M-Pesa, rose 33.7 percent to Sh25.9 billion from Sh19.35 billion  a year earlier.

The figures for the telecom company, which is 40 percent owned by Britain’s Vodafone and has Kenya’s biggest subscriber base, cover the half-year period from April 1 to Sept. 30. The company is also increasing its guidance for the full year’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to between 94 billion to 97 billion shillings, said Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore.

Highlights

• Total customer base grew by 6% to 26.6m
• Service revenue growth of 15.4% to Kshs 98.0bn
• Voice service revenue grew by 1.1% to Kshs 45.7bn
• Messaging revenue grew by 8.1% to Kshs 8.6bn
• 12.2% increase in 30 day active M-PESA customers to 17.6m
• M-PESA revenue increased by 33.7% to Kshs 25.9bn
• 13.7% increase in 30 day active mobile data customers to 14.9m
• 46.3% growth in mobile data revenue to Kshs 13.4bn
• Fixed service revenue growth of 29.1% to Kshs 2.40bn

Mr Collymore said: “Delivering our financial inclusion agenda remains at the core of our strategy to transform lives. To further deepen the financial inclusion and in response to our customers’ feedback, we have reviewed charges for person-to-person and Lipa Na M-PESA transactions under Kshs100. Under the “M-PESA Kadogo” it will be free to send values of KShs100 and below.”

“We have done this to empower the people who support this company the most – the mama mbogas, the small businessmen and the micro agents who form our network. We shall continue to grow the adoption of savings and uptake of loans through M-PESA, and grow cashless business payments and transactions.”

[crp]