Safaricom's device financing program, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo, has reached a historic milestone by selling over 2 million 4G smartphones since its debut in 2020.
The Swahili word "Lipa Mdogo Mdogo" translates to "pay little by little" or "pay in installments."
The telco announced its device financing initiative's milestone on Friday, at the release of its 2025 full-year financial results.
According to Safaricom, the device financing program has helped to bridge Kenya's digital divide by allowing customers with low incomes to purchase smartphones through affordable daily installments.
“Lipa Mdogo Mdogo will help the Mwananchi (citizen) who earn their wages daily acquire a range of smartphones and pay in easy daily instalments for as low as Kshs 20 (15 cents in dollars) while enjoying all the benefits that comes with being digitally connected,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
Safaricom introduced the device financing program in 2020 to increase 4G adoption in the country by upgrading customers from 2G feature phones to low-cost 4G smartphones.
Since then, the telco has collaborated with manufacturers such as Transsion, Samsung, and Nokia to add more smartphones to the program.
The Android Lipa Mdogo Mdogo smartphones come preloaded with a suite of Google Apps, including search, maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
Speaking about the company's overall performance, Ndengwa said: “The year ended 31 March 2025 marks the final year of our five year strategy cycle and was also the foundational year for the Vision 2030 strategy cycle.
“Despite a challenging environment, we delivered robust performance, with results from Kenya and Ethiopia within the guidance previously provided.
"In Kenya, we delivered growth across all business units while Ethiopia recorded accelerated commercial progress, reaffirming our commitment to transform Ethiopia’s digital future.
“The robust performance achieved and strong top line growth attained underscores our commitment to the execution of our strategy. Our investments in Big Data and AI have yielded tangible benefits, enabling better pricing, provision of personalised integrated services to our customers and increased operational efficiencies.”
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