Safaricom's chief executive officer Bob Collymore. The telco has posted a 45 per cent rise in net profit for the six months to September 2013 of Sh11.26 billion. Photo/Salaton Njau
What you need to know:
Safaricom Tuesday said that its net income rose to Sh11.26 billion during the six months period ended September 2013 from Sh7.77 billion over the same period of time last year.
Telecommunications firm Safaricom has posted a 44.8 per cent increase in profit after tax in the six months ended September this year buoyed by increased revenues and a sharp drop in finance costs.
The company on Tuesday said that its net income rose to Sh11.26 billion during the six months period ended September 2013 from Sh7.77 billion over the same period of time last year.
Safaricom posted a 17.1 per cent increase in revenues to Sh69.2 billion between April and September this year compared to Sh59.11 billion posted over the same period in 2012.
This was driven by a 12 per cent increase in voice revenue to Sh41.9 billion, a 30 per cent increase in non-voice revenue to Sh24.3 billion while revenues from handset sales and acquisitions accounted for the balance.
“Voice is our core business with a 79.5 per cent market share of voice traffic as per the Communications Commission of Kenya March 2013 statistics. Voice revenues grew on the back of a growing customer base which now stands at 20.8 million, a better network experience, convenient airtime distribution and attractive consumer propositions and promotions,” said Bob Collymore, Safaricom's chief executive officer.
M-Pesa revenues jumped by 19.85 per cent to Sh12.5 billion, while the number of registered customers for the money transfer service rose by 19.17 per cent to 18.15 million.
Mr Collymore said that the number of M-Pesa agent outlets jumped by 73 per cent in the six months period to 78,856 increasing accessibility of the service to customers.
The telecommunications firm also launched a new service dubbed Lipa na M-Pesa which enables cashless merchant payments and allows customers to pay for services at small retailers for free.
