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Safaricom Plc has announced its Half Year Result Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) up from KSh 44.2 Billion to KSh 49.8 Billion for the period ending September 30. The results were attributed to the strong performance of its mobile financial service, M-Pesa and customer growth.
“Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) recorded a strong growth of 38.5% y/y/from 36.1%,” announced SChief Financial Officer Sateesh Kamath said during the investor briefing. “ We remain confident in meeting our guidance for this year,” Safaricom chief financial officer Sateesh Kamath. This resulted in a 14.4percent increase in its net income.
Last year, it recorded a 20.2% growth in net profit to Ksh 31.5 billion for the six months ended September 30 (2018/2019) on the back of a strong performance in mobile money M-Pesa and data.
Revenue from M-Pesa, grew 18.2% to Ksh 41.97 billion. Revenue from the mobile data business rose 4% to Ksh 19.78 billion.
During the period there was an increase in the number of overall customers to 34.57m as at 30 September 2019 with M-PESA one month active customers increasing to 23.61m and mobile data customers increasing to 20.19m customers.
“We have achieved solid results despite challenges in the economy, driven mainly by strong M-PESA performance. We are fully committed to putting the customer at the heart of Safaricom, regaining customer trust and growing our market share,” said Michael Joseph the outgoing acting chief executive.
“Data is the future focus for the company,” said Joseph. “It is good for us going forward, we will meet our commitments and objectives going forward.” This is based on the FY20 Guidance of KSh 93-97 billion and CAPEX of KSh 36-39 billion.
“Customer growth remained strong in the first half of this year and we have more than doubled our net additions versus last year,” Joseph said.
In the results, Michael Joseph the Chief Executive said in the last six months they achieved 8.9% customer growth attributed to investment in the network where 732 additional 4G sites were rolled out covering 63% of the population.
“The success of Safaricom is the foundation of our corporate social responsibility of transforming lives,” said Michael noting that it is not about providing voice and data.
“We shall focus more where we shall benefit the most, at the grassroots level,” he said. In the period, they contributed 6.3% to the GDP. “We will sustain the momentum of investing in the quality of our service and growth in our portfolio including deeper penetration of M-PESA into the economy, cloud and IoT solutions, our agricultural and e-commerce platforms, regional expansion and new business opportunities. “
