Safaricom’s net profit for six months through September rose 20.22 per cent partly helped by revenue from its mobile money service platform M-Pesa, the giant telco reported Friday.
Profit after taxation hit Sh31.5 billion compared with Sh26.20 billion a year earlier.
The mobile network operator, whose shares trade on Nairobi bourse, earned Sh35.52 billion from globally-leading M-Pesa, an 18.2 percent jump from Sh30.05 billion a year earlier.
Growth in data services slowed in the period, zooming 10.8 per cent to Sh19.45 billion.
Flat voice revenues
Voice revenues were nearly flat, increasing 1.4 per cent year-on-year to Sh48.03 billion.
Growth in messaging revenue was equally flat, growing 1.2 per cent to Sh8.82 billion, while fixed services income jumped 21 per cent to Sh3.91 billion.
“I’m pleased with the progress we made on a number of fronts in the first half of the year. We achieved solid results driven by strong M-Pesa gains,
further diversification of our revenue mix to tap into new growth areas and investment in new revenue streams, which contributed to a double digit increase in Earnings Per Share (EPS), and free cash flow,” chief executive Bob Collymore said.
“We accomplished all this while sustaining investment in our network, which saw us invest Sh17 billion in the first half of the year driven by increased network roll out and acceleration of broadband and fibre deployment. ”
By Daily Nation
