Safaricom half-year profit rises by 12% to Ksh.37.1 billion

Safaricom Plc has posted a 12.1 per cent growth in net profit through six months to September 30, 2021 with earnings reaching Ksh.37.1 billion from Ksh.33.1 billion last year.

The profit growth, which contrasts to a six per cent net profit decline in a similar period in 2020, is attributable to a recovery in M-Pesa revenues following the resumption of charges to transactions valued at Ksh.1000 or less.

M-Pesa revenue has grown by 45.8 per cent to Ksh.52.3 billion anchoring a 16.9 per cent growth in service revenues to Ksh.138.4 billion.

In addition to the return of charges, Safaricom Plc Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa says the company has improved the functionality of the platform leading to more usage by customers.

“Beyond the economy recovering and us getting back to charging, there has been a significant focus on innovation. We have for instance recently launched the M-Pesa application which has already seen four million downloads in three to four months,” he said.

Safaricom has also posted growth in voice revenues by 3.2 per cent to Ksh.41.5 billion while mobile data revenue has grown by 6.3 per cent to Ksh.23.6 billion.

Other mobile service revenue has meanwhile jumped by 23.9 per cent to Ksh.4.7 billion from last year.

Nevertheless, Safariom’s messaging revenue has declined by 18.3 per cent to Ksh.5.9 billion.

The number of one-month active M-Pesa customers has grown by 7.1 per cent to 28.7 million persons while Safaricom’s one-month active overall customers have grown by 4.7 per cent to 31.8 million individuals.

During the last six months, Safaricom has raised its capital expenditure by a marginal 0.3 per cent to Ksh.22.8 billion.

Safaricom board Chairman Michael Joseph expects the company’s performance to strengthen further with the firm adapting to the tough operating environment in the past 18 months.

“The board is encouraged by the trajectory of the recovery as we see our service revenues improving,” he said.

Safaricom’s earnings per share have grown by a similar margin to net profit to reach 92 cents per share from 83 cents last September.