Shares of Kenyan telecommunication company Safaricom Plc on Tuesday’s trading session touched a new record high of Ksh 35.00, pushing the company’s market valuation to Ksh 1.4 Trillion. The company’s market cap at the Nairobi Securities Exchange now accounts for 61% of the entire market valuation following the rise in stock price.
The company’s shares have surged by 7% since Mid-December when the country’s Central Bank announced that the emergency waivers for mobile money transactions would expire on December 31, 2020. The waivers came into place when the pandemic hit in March, to encourage the use of digital money over cash transactions in response to COVID-19.
In July 2020, Safaricom said it was losing an average of KSh 1.8 billion a month, thanks to the free transactions. The telco estimated that this cost the company KSh 16.2 billion in revenues by the end of 2020.
Safaricom Half Year Earnings
Safaricom net earnings for the six months period ended 31st September 2020 fell by 6% to KSh 33.069 Billion compared to a net profit of KSh 35.195 Billion over a similar period last year. The firm’s board attributed this subdued financial performance to Safaricom’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic on the M-PESA cash transfer platform.
Safaricom Shareholding Structure
Citi Projects Safaricom’s Net earnings to Hit KSh78.7 Billion in 2023
Safaricom Lobbies for End of Freebies on its M-PESA Platform
