Safaricom's Ethiopian subsidiary reported significant customer growth, with a 47.3% increase in the six months ended September.

This was announced by the company during its first-half financial results presentation in Nairobi.

This expansion has increased the number of monthly active users in the Ethiopian market to 6.1 million.

Safaricom also reported that it now serves 46% of Ethiopia's population.

The market also saw growth throughout its product offerings, despite the fact that currency devaluation reduced the Group's total profitability.

Safaricom said it has taken many steps to reduce the short-term impact of current foreign exchange regime reforms, including renegotiating foreign currency-denominated contracts, on-boarding local suppliers for specific products and services, and reducing its expatriate base.

Voice revenue grew by 27.1 per cent to $4.01 million (Sh516.4 million) driven by increased usage and a growing number of customers, while one-month active voice customers rose by 63.8 per cent to 3.57 million. 

Safaricom Ethiopia’s mobile data one-month active customers more than doubled in the period from 1.4 million to 3.5 million. Usage per subscriber was strong doubling to 6.56GB thus uplifting Average Revenue Per User by 10.8%.

M-PESA revenue ended the half-year at $189.1 thousand (Sh24.4 million) with 8.31 million registered customers.

Mobile Data revenue doubled from $10.3 million (Sh1.32 billion) in the first six months to $25 million (Sh3.22 billion) on the back of strong usage levels, customer growth and smartphone penetration initiatives.