Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom PLC CEO.

Safaricom, Kenyan telco, has surpassed the billion-dollar threshold in revenue, becoming the first company in East Africa region to reach the milestone.

This is according to the company's full-year 2023/2024 results, which were released on Thursday.

Safaricom recorded KShs 139.9 billion in its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) in the period ending March 2024.

At a group level, incorporating the start-up costs and investments in Safaricom Ethiopia, the group closed at an EBIT of KES.94.9 billion ($724.9m), a 3.5% growth year on year.

The earnings surpassed both the market expectations and the group guidance range of KES.129 billion ($98.5m) -132 billion ($100.8m).

“We are extremely pleased with what we have been able to achieve as a group despite the significant start-up costs in our Ethiopia business. We expect that from 2025, Ethiopia will start being a significant growth contributor at group level for both top and bottom line,” Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom PLC CEO said.

In the period under review, Safaricom PLC Group revenue grew by 13.4% to KShs 335.3 billion ($44.1m), with M-PESA contributing 42.4% of revenue at KShs at 140 billion ($18.4m) and GSM business contributing 52.7% at Kes.173.9 Billion ($22.9m).

Net income increased by 13.7% to KShs 84.74 billion for Safaricom Kenya while the Group net income excluding minority interest increased by 1.2% to KShs 62.99 billion.

In Ethiopia, Safaricom has doubled its active customer base to 4.4 million and built a network that is currently almost half the Kenya’s size.

Ndengwa said: ‘’We are hence pleased with commercial momentum in Ethiopia and proud that we have been able to deliver this momentum with a Safaricom Ethiopia team that is 90% Ethiopians."

The CEO also noted that the company's vision towards a purpose-led technology company was a key factor in investments that enabled the company to create more efficiencies and better customer engagement.

“We are able to anticipate and serve our customers more intuitively while engaging our communities to solve their societal challenges. As a result of our razor-sharp focus on our customers, we are now a billion-dollar business in Kenya,” Ndengwa noted.