Safaricom profits hit Ksh.31.5B attributed to data, M-Pesa growth

Mobile service provider Safaricom has announced a net profit of Ksh.31.5 billion in the half year ending September 30,2018.

During the period under review, M-Pesa revenues went up by 18.2% raking in Ksh.35.5 billion while mobile data revenues also recorded an increase of 10.2% to bring in Ksh.19.45 billion.

Speaking at the telcos headquarters, Safaricom Chairman, Nicholas Ng’ang’a however expressed the need to find a common ground with the government to reduce the tax burden on telcos which they say is passed on to the customers.

In the last six months, Safaricom paid more than Ksh.48.2 billion against a service revenue of Ksh.118.2 billion.

” This shows you how much we are paying to the government and these charges are being pushed to the consumer as well,” said Ng’ang’a.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore however noted that the telco is leveraging on the power of mobile technology to develop, take to market and scale propositions in health, agriculture and education.

This he said is impacting livelihoods positively through products such as M-Tiba, Digifarm and Shupavu291; a learning tool that is giving millions of young learners in Kenya access to curriculum-approved educational content via the mobile phone.

Messaging revenue recorded a drop of 1.2% to Ksh.8.81 billion while fixed service revenue increased by 21.0% raking in Ksh.3.91 billion.

Customer numbers increased by 1.5% to 29.94 million.