Safaricom last week announced their results for the period ended 30th September 2016 and as always they posted impressive results. This saw their net income increase by 32.36% to 23.93 billion up from 18.08 billion in the same period last year.
This growth in income was driven by service revenue which grew by 15.4% to Ksh. 98 bn. Non-voice service revenue accounted for 53.4% recording a growth of 31.7 to Ksh 53.3 bn. On the other hand voice revenue was 46.6% of service revenue at Ksh.45.7 bn. Messaging revenue grew by 8.1% to Ksh.8.6 bn representing 8.8% of service revenue, this was driven by an increase in the number of 30 day active SMS users, an increase in SMS bundle users and growth in premium rated SMS users.
M-pesa revenue grew by 33.7% to Ksh.25.9 bn driven by an increase in 30 day active M-pesa customers to 17.6 million. Monthly usage per customer rose to 9.3 transactions per month. The Lipa na M-pesa platform has been well received by merchants and so far there are over 50,000 merchants who are active on a 30 day basis as at the end of September 2016. To boost the number of people using Mpesa, they have removed sending charges for amounts below Ksh.100 in what is called “Mpesa Kadogo”.
Mobile internet revenue which is the fastest growing revenue segment for Safaricom grew at a rate of 46.3% to Ksh.13.4 bn. This was largely driven by a growth in the 30 day active mobile data customers to 14.9 m, increased bundle users and smartphone penetration. By end of September Safaricom had a total of 10.5 million customers on 3G and 4G enabled devices. In a bid to boost the number of people using data on their network, Safaricom plans to increase the number of 4G sites and at the same time offer affordable smart devices. They also plan to continue with their rollout of Fiber to the home.
