Safaricom Ethiopia has announced a massive 44% average hike in mobile data charges, marking the company's most aggressive pricing adjustment since entering the Ethiopian market two years ago.
The price increase is part of the telco's frantic attempt to break-even by March 2027, following a huge currency depreciation that has decimated its bottom line.
The price hike affects daily, weekly, and monthly data bundles. Daily bundles have the most affected, with per-unit costs rising between 34% and 67% as the company slashed the amount of data included in entry-level plans.
For example, the popular daily 1GB package saw its price rise from 30 Birr to 35 Birr ($0.23) while the data allocation was cut by more than half, effectively doubling the cost per gigabyte for the most price-sensitive users.
Weekly packages have experienced even more drastic shifts, with effective per-unit price increases reaching as high as 82%.
This was largely driven by the withdrawal of smaller, lower and priced options, which were replaced by larger, more expensive bundles that require a higher upfront commitment from customers.
Monthly data plans also saw substantial adjustments, with prices rising between 20% and 67% depending on the volume.
Meanwhile, unlimited daily, weekly, and monthly packages increased by 20% to 25%, and long-term plans such as quarterly and half-year bundles rose by approximately 21%.
This price adjustment is a direct response to the Ethiopian currency dramatic depreciation.
Following the government’s decision to allow the Birr (currency) to float freely in mid-2024, the currency lost over 100% of its value against the US dollar.
For Safaricom, this created a critical financial mismatch because approximately 85% of its capital expenditure and 50% of its operating costs) were denominated in foreign currency (primarily USD). In contrast, all its revenues were earned in the local Ethiopian Birr.
Despite these financial hurdles, Safaricom’s operational growth in Ethiopia remains robust.
The telco recently reported explosive 136% growth in its service revenue, which surged to KES 6.2 billion ($48.0 million) for the six months ending September 30, 2025.
The subsidiary, a key part of Safaricom’s group strategy, also successfully narrowed its net loss by 20.1% to KES 15.5 billion ($120.0 million), a sign that the massive-scale investment is beginning to stabilize.
The primary driver of the revenue boom was the massive uptake of core telecom services.
Mobile data revenue, the unit’s largest earner, grew by 102.2% to KES 4.1 billion ($31.7 million). Voice revenue saw an even more dramatic increase of 328.5% to KES 1.4 billion ($10.8 million).
This growth was also fueled by an 83.7% jump in Safaricom Ethiopia’s customer base, which now stands at 11.1 million users.
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