Kenya-based telecommunications giant Safaricom has reported a robust financial performance for the year ending March 2025, with its annual revenue climbing to an impressive $3 billion (388.7 billion Ksh). This marks a significant improvement from the previous year's estimate of $2.9 billion (385.4 billion Ksh), underscoring the company's strong growth trajectory. Moreover, Safaricom's annual profit surged by 11 percent, surpassing analysts' projections and demonstrating effective operational strategies.

The company's net income for the period ending March 2025 reached $540 million (69.8 billion shillings), slightly exceeding the 68.9 billion Khs estimated by a Bloomberg survey. In its full-year financial report, Safaricom, the largest telecom provider in Kenya, also announced earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 104.1 billion Ksh ($807 million), comfortably outperforming the group’s projected earnings range of 94 to 100 billion Ksh. Safaricom is a prominent player in East Africa, serving over 55 million subscribers across various markets including Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt. The company is partly owned by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone, solidifying its international backing.

Despite its widespread success, Safaricom's expansion into Ethiopia in 2022 has presented a mixed bag of results. While the venture into Africa’s second most populous nation holds substantial promise for future growth, the company has navigated a challenging environment marked by security concerns, inflation, and currency fluctuations. Nevertheless, it has achieved strong customer growth in the region, signaling long-term potential.

A notable success story for Safaricom is its device financing program, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo, which has been instrumental in bridging Kenya’s digital divide. Since its inception in 2020, the initiative has facilitated the sale of over 2 million 4G smartphones. This program empowers low-income customers to acquire smartphones through affordable daily installments, starting from as low as Kshs 20. As Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s CEO, stated at its launch, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo enables the 'mwananchi' (citizen) who earn daily wages to access the benefits of digital connectivity. To further enhance this initiative, Safaricom partnered with leading manufacturers like Transsion, Samsung, and Nokia to diversify the range of smartphones available. The program, delivered in partnership with Android (Google’s operating system), ensures that all offered smartphones come pre-loaded with a suite of Google Apps, providing a rich user experience for business, entertainment, and communication.

Safaricom’s mobile money payment service, M-Pesa, continues to demonstrate impressive growth and innovation. M-Pesa recently launched a new digital payment service in Ethiopia, allowing customers to pay for fuel with their mobile phones. This service, rolled out at the Bole Total Fuel Station in Addis Ababa, offers motorists a quick and secure payment method and provides station attendants with a streamlined system for managing transactions, records, and payment history. Elsa Muzzolini, CEO at M-Pesa, highlighted this as a significant milestone in Ethiopia's digital journey, with plans to scale across all 2,000 fuel stations in the country.

Recognized as one of Africa’s largest mobile money services, M-Pesa boasts a presence in over 170 countries globally and serves more than 70 million customers. Its expansive ecosystem includes over one million businesses and agents in markets where its parent company operates. The service also supports over 55,000 integrations on its Daraja platform, fostering a vibrant community of more than 100,000 developers. With a current capacity to process 4000 transactions per second and handling nearly 100 million transactions daily, M-Pesa stands as Africa’s largest fintech solution.

In a significant move to bolster its leading position, Safaricom announced a $300 million (KSh 40 billion) investment to upgrade its flagship mobile money platform, M-Pesa. This upgrade, dubbed “M-Pesa 2.0” and coinciding with its 18th anniversary, is designed to enhance system stability, capacity, and overall customer experience, further solidifying M-Pesa’s status as a global leader in mobile payment services.