Safaricom PLC has recorded a net profit of Sh 35.6 billion for the past six months, this a 14.4 % increase in growth which is attributed to the increased revenues from Mpesa and data.
In 2018, the company registered a net profit of Sh 31.5 billion. Service revenues have grown to 124.3 billion while Mpesa revenues have grown by 18.2 % to Sh 41.9 billion. Mobile data increased to Sh46.8 billion representing a four percent growth.
High demand for mobile data has seen messaging revenue decline by 11% to sh 80.8 billion. Speaking during the announcement of the results, Acting CEO Michael Joseph on Friday stated that the company will concentrate on investing and improving the quality of service to widen its market share.
” We will sustain the momentum of investing in the quality of our service and growth in our portfolio including deeper penetration of M-PESA into the economy, cloud and IoT solutions, our agricultural and e-commerce platforms, regional expansion and new business opportunities,” Michael Josepg said.
Safaricom’s results indicate that revenue from mobile data dropped to Sh19.2 billion compared to Sh19.5 billion in the first half of the year. Chief financial officer, Sateesh Kamath attributed the drop to the 5% increase ON excise duty on airtime from 10 per cent.
