Safaricom has posted a 32.4% increase in net income to Kshs 23.93 Billion for the first half period ended September 2016 compared to Kshs 18.08 billion posted in a similar six month period ended September 2015.
Total revenue increased by 5% to Kshs 102 billion, largely attributed to service revenue which grew by 15.4% to Kshs 98 billion. Voice revenue increased by 1.1% to Kshs 45.7 billion and accounted for 53.2% of total revenues.
The growth in M-PESA revenue was at a 33.7% to Kshs 25.9 billion compared to Kshs 19.35 Billion in a similar period last year. The Telco said that it registered 17.6 million active M-PESA customers on a monthly basis as at September 2016 compared to 15.71 million as at September 2015 and nearly 15 million mobile data active customers each month.
SMS revenue grew by 8.1% to Kshs 8.6 billion while mobile data revenue shot up 46.3% to Kshs 13.4 billion.
Revenue from the sale of handsets was up marginally by 3.7% to Sh 4 Billion. Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore also announced that the company will get rid of charges on person to person MPESA transfers & lipa-na-Mpesa on amounts less than Kshs 100.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange listed company also noted that customer numbers had increased by 6% to 26.61 million as at September 2016 from 25.10 million as at September 2015.
Earnings Per share(EPS) increased by 32.4% to Ksh.0.60.
