Safaricom remains the most profitable company in East Africa with a net income of $598 Million according to an annual survey by African Business Magazine as at 9 April 2020.
This is an improvement from position 14 to 10 for the telco that posted a net profit soared 19.5 percent to Ksh 74.7 billion.
“World-beating telco Safaricom in Kenya (#10, up from #14 on the list with market cap of $10.0bn and dominant on the Nairobi Securities Exchange) and Nigeria’s Paga were among mobile money firms that took a hit to earnings when they removed fees on low-value transfers to move customers away from using cash. But that is only accelerating an underlying trend towards mobile money and analysts expect that activity will pick up strongly after the crisis,” said Tom Minney on the fortunes of Africa’s Top 250 Companies.
Tanzania Breweries came in at position 75 in Africa, with Equity Holdings (Net income of $211 Million) 3rd in East Africa and ranked at position 82 in Africa.
Top 10 companies
According to the rankings, East Africa Breweries came in at 4th in East Africa, KCB Group at 5th position, Vodacom Tanzania at 6th position, Tanzania Cigarette at 7th position, Co-operative Bank of Kenya at 8th position, Standard Chartered Bank at 9th position and NMB Bank closing up the list of top 10 companies in East Africa.
Top 20 list
I&M Bank (11), BAT (Uganda) 12, BAT (Kenya) 13, Stanbic (Uganda) 14, KenGen (15), Diamond Trust Bank (16), NCBA (17), Jubilee Holdings (17), Tanzania Portland Cement and Britam Holdings in the insurance industry came at 18 and 19 respectively.
Kenya lost three entries to list 11 companies and their combined market capitalization was dipped from $21bn to $16bn.
“However, Kenya’s companies are resilient and manufacturing millions of masks to protect against coronavirus – the government made wearing of them compulsory in public on April 15 – as well as protective equipment.”
Prosus, a tech firm with a market capitalization of $ 119,141 Million is the most profitable company in Africa followed by Naspers, a media firm, Financiere Richemo, a dealer in luxury goods, Anglo American in the metals and mining industry with Anglo American platimum, Firstrand, Vodacom Group and Standard Group ranked position 9.
