Safaricom post Ksh38.1 billion in profit

Safaricom has posted Ksh38.1 billion in profit for the year ending  2015. The revenue was boosted by M-PESA and increased data usage.

Announcing the result Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said that the company remitted to Government Ksh31.14 billion in duties, taxes and license fees for the six month period ended 30 September 2015, up from Ksh29.84 billion in September 2014.

He said that Safaricom has proposed a dividend of Ksh0.76 per share to be paid in December 2016, subject to shareholder approval.Pending approval by shareholders Safaricom will pay out a dividend of Ksh30.48 billion, which represents 80 per cent of net income, for the year ended 31 March 2016.

Mr Collymore said M-PESA revenue grew by 27.2 per cent to Ksh41.5 billion, driven by a 19.8 per cent growth in 30 day active M-PESA customers to 16.6m and a 17.5 per cent growth of M-PESA agent footprint to 100,744.

Lipa Na M-PESA payments made at 44,000 merchant outlets in March grew by 74 per cent to Ksh20 billion. He further said that M-PESA continues to be a key platform to drive financial inclusion which will drive the growth of savings and loans, grow cashless payments for businesses through M-PESA and launch new innovative products.

The number of customers on Kenya’s leading telecom network shot up to 25.10 million as at 30 September 2015, up from 21.85m the same period in 2014. Mr Collymore said the company continued to invest heavily in both the expansion and modernisation of its 2G, 3G, and 4G networks and in fibre layout in key metro areas that have seen it create 4,251 direct jobs and 108,000 indirect jobs.

According to the results, Safaricom saw a 42.7 per cent growth in mobile data revenue to Ksh21.2 billion – a 21.5% increase which drove active mobile data customers to 14.1 million.

He also announced that they have realigned sales and operation teams to be independently managed in six regions, with the sales teams and network teams in each region reporting to region’s head.