Kenya’s biggest mobile network, Safaricom, has posted a Ksh 23 billion ($264 million) after tax profit, representing a 31.1% increase in earnings compared to last year’s Ksh 17.5 billion.

The company has also announced a record Ksh 18.8 billion dividend payout to its shareholders, after its share prices shot up to a valuation of Ksh 13 per share, the highest growth in over two years, consequently making it the largest dividend ever to be paid by a Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) isted firm.

The company said that mobile internet revenues grew by 41%, earning the company Ksh 9.3 billion in revenues, while M-Pesa revenues grew by 22%, bringing in revenues of Ksh 26.6 billion.

Together, Mobile internet and M-Pesa earned Safaricom a total of Ksh 7 billion in after tax profits.

Speaking during the announcement of the results in Nairobi, Safaricom’s chief executive, Bob Collymore, said the company was launching an aggressive campaign to ensure that it places itself strategically in cashless payments, especially with competition coming from Visa and MasterCard in the plastic money space.

“Our priority this year is to commercialise this service by growing the number of active merchants and making Lipa na M-Pesa the preferred electronic payment platform,” said Collymore.

The company’s sale of data enabled handsets, both feature phones and smartphones, raked in Ksh 4.9 billion in revenues, with the company promising to concentrate more in the sell of smartphones.

“Mobile data is one of the key drivers of future growth. We will endeavor to continue increasing smartphone and 3G device penetration through partnerships with vendors to offer quality and cost effective devices,” added Collymore.

Meanwhile, voice revenues decreased to 62% from 66% last year, earning the company Ksh 96.3 billion. SMS revenues grew by 34.1% to Kshs 13.6 billion, signaling that the SMS revenue stream is still significant in the company’s earnings.

In terms of subscriber base growth, the company said that it witnessed an 11% growth in the number of subscribers, making it hold 67.9% of Kenya’s mobile subscribers with 21.6 million users.