Safaricom recorded flat growth in its revenues despite high growth in the mobile data segment, according to its full-year end results for 2020.

A government directive to scrap transaction fees in mobile money transfers affected transactions of Kshs 1000 and below to the tune of Kshs 4.4-billion. This, together with a generally subdued business environment, saw the company’s revenue contract marginally.

Total services revenue recorded a marginal decline of 0.3% to close at Kshs 250.35-billion the telco said. Mobile money, widely affected by the waiver on transactions, was subdued by 2.1% YoY to rake in Kshs 82.64-billion. The company’s net income reduced by 6.8% YoY to Kshs 68.68-billion.

“The impact of our response to COVID-19 in zero-rating M-Pesa transactions weighed heavily on our performance. However, we saw a gradual recovery in the second H2 with service revenue posting 4% YoY from a decline of 4.8% in H1,” said Dilip Pal, Chief Financial Officer at Safaricom.

Nevertheless, the mobile data business grew 11.5% YoY to register revenue of Kshs 44.70- billion, attributed to the increased use of data during the work-from-home directives in 2020.

“Despite a tough financial year, the company is committed to investing in the business and maintaining a consistent dividend payout ratio in line with our dividend policy. Our guidance for the financial year 2022 is at the range of KES 105 - 108 billion for Earnings Before Interest and Tax and Capital Expenditure guidance in the range of KES 40 - 43 billion,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa.

“But our most critical support to our country was and remains to ensure network stability to keep the country connected,” he added. “During this period we accelerated the network roll-out specifically for 4G with over 1,000 new sites set up.”

Ndegwa said the company has seen a 40% uptake of 4G devices on the Safaricom network. This was attributed to the company’s campaign to offer low monthly payments for users who want to upgrade to 4G devices.