Safaricom #ticker:SCOM net profit for the six months through September this year jumped 14.4 percent to Sh35.65 billion on strong M-Pesa and mobile data revenue growth that offset a decline in voice and messaging (SMS) revenues.
This has set the telco on a course for the eighth straight year of increasing bottom-line.
During the half year period, M-pesa revenue grew by 18.2 per cent to Sh41.97 billion as mobile data revenue increased by 4 per cent to Sh19.78 billion.
Voice service revenue (drawn from incoming and outgoing calls) which makes up the bulk of the telco’s revenues declined 1.4 percent to Sh46.87 billion while messaging revenue declined by 11 per cent to Sh8.6 billion.
"Revenue growth for the half year to September 2019 was 5.3 percent driven by robust performance across M-Pesa and fixed data and strong customer growth offsetting decline in the traditional revenue streams and soft performance on mobile data," said Safaricom outgoing chief executive Michael Joseph while announcing the results at the firm’s headquarters in Nairobi.
During the period, Safaricom’s service revenue was up 5.3 percent per cent to Sh124.32 billion.
