Kenya Power has increased its dividend payout by 42.85 percent to Sh1 per share or a total of Sh1.95 billion in the year ended June 2025 even as its net profit fell 18.66 percent on lower revenues and higher finance costs.
The company has proposed a final dividend of Sh0.8 per share to be paid on or about January 30, 2026 to shareholders who will be on the register as of December 2, 2025.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm had already paid an interim dividend of Sh0.2, bringing the total payout for the review period to Sh1 per share.
This marks an increase of Sh585.4 million compared to the prior year when the company paid a total dividend of Sh1.36 billion equivalent to Sh0.7 per share.
The dividend paid for the year ended June 2024 –when net profit stood at a record Sh30.08 billion— marked the first time the company reinstated cash distributions to shareholders after years of losses.
The company's net income in the review period declined 18.66 percent to Sh24.46 billion as a lower tariff negated the impact of increased electricity unit sales. Kenya Power says that it will retain the dividend payouts in the coming years on the back of sustained profitability, offering a huge boost to its shareholders who had gone for years without getting the payments.
“Besides the social good that we provide, we also have to deliver to our investors. I can assure our investors that this (dividend) is not a one-off, and for the next few years, they should expect to see growing profitability and more value for their money,” Joy Masinde, chairperson of the board of directors of Kenya Power said on Tuesday.
The impact of the increased unit sales was undone by the progressive drop in energy charge for most consumer bands mainly for domestic and small commercial users.
Power sales grew eight percent to 11,403 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the review period but revenues dropped to Sh219.28 billion from Sh231.12 billion.
The cost of a unit of electricity (energy charge) for most consumers has been progressively falling since 2023 in line with the three-year tariff gazetted by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra).
Energy charge per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity for domestic consumers who use more than 100 units a month fell to Sh19.08 in the year to June from Sh20.58 a year ago, making this band the biggest beneficiaries of the new tariff.
Small commercial users (consuming more than 100 units a month) paid Sh19.4 per unit as energy charge in the year to June 2025 compared to Sh20 a year earlier.
“If you compare 2022/23 and now which is the tariff control period, it (cost of a unit) has gone down by almost Sh2 per unit. For example, if you used 20 units in 2023 and the same now, it (cost of these units) will be reduced by almost Sh40,” Joseph Siror, the managing director of Kenya Power said on Tuesday.
The utility firm is now banking on new tariffs that are expected to come into force from July next year to improve the revenues from electricity sales. Kenya Power added 401,848 new connections in the year ended June 2025 bringing its total customers to 10.06 million.
This has coincided with new peak demands which signal increased consumption by homes and industries for electricity.
The Sh1.95 billion that Kenya Power will spend in dividend payout for the year ended June 2025 marks the second time in seven years that the firm is paying shareholders.
Investors had last been paid a dividend in 2017 at a rate of Sh0.50 per share. Heavy losses then forced Kenya Power to freeze the payouts until the year to June 2024.
The dividend drought had made Kenya Power the only State-owned listed energy firm that had not been paying its shareholders. Kenya Pipeline and KenGen have for years paid their investors on the back of strong performances.
Kenya Power declared an interim dividend of Sh0.20 for the half year ended December 2024, after it posted a net profit of Sh9.97 billion.
This was the first interim dividend in nine years.
The electricity distributor is banking on increased customer connections and growing demand for electricity to grow sales in the coming years and in return keep Kenya Power on the profitability path.
