Safaricom has remained resilient during its financial year ending March 2021 despite the tough economic conditions triggered by the covid19 pandemic.
The firm saw a 6.8% revenue drop to 68.7 billion while its service revenue contracted by 0.3% to KES 250.35bn. Safaricom’s Voice revenue reduced by 4.6% YoY to KES 82.55bn while M-PESA revenue dropped by 2.1% YoY to KES 82.65bn.
“We remained resilient in a disruptive year, demonstrating strong operational capacity, diligence and commitment in supporting the country, our customers and shareholders through this uncertain time. Our immediate focus in the year has been to ensure that network capacity, operations and financial services are prioritized to limit disruptions,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO.
Safaricom’s mobile data revenue increased by 11.5% YoY to KES 44,79bn while its messaging revenue declined by 11.7% YoY to KES 13.60bn while its total one-month active customer base increased by 9.9% to 31.45Mn closesly followed by a 13 percent increase in one month active M-PESA customers to 28.31mn.
Safaricom’s one month active mobile data customers increased 8.1% to 23.77mn.
To cushion Kenyans against the pandemic, Safaricom waived fees for transactions below a KES 1,000, which saw free transactions worth KES 4.4 billion processed.
To support Micro and Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the company introduced the Pochi la Biashara, M-PESA Business App, Bill Manager, Merchant Transacting till and Self On-Boarding process. Safaricom has also announced that the consumer M-PESA App will be launched in quarter one of the current financial year.