Safaricom Ethiopia Telecommunications PLC delivered one of its strongest performances yet in the 2025/26 financial year, posting rapid customer growth, surging revenues, and sharply narrowing losses as the telecom operator moves closer to a profitability inflection point.
The company’s revenue rose 58.3 percent year-on-year to KShs 14.1 billion, underscoring the pace at which the business is scaling in Ethiopia’s liberalized telecom market. The growth came despite significant macroeconomic pressures, including a nearly 24 percent depreciation of the Ethiopian Birr against the U.S. dollar during the same period.
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Safaricom said the Ethiopia business has now reached an “important inflection point,” with strong commercial momentum contributing 15 percent to overall Group Service Revenue growth.
A major driver behind the expansion was a sharp increase in subscribers. The company reported 13.6 million 90-day active customers in Ethiopia, representing a 54 percent increase from the previous year, signaling that the market is moving beyond early adoption and trial usage into broader consumer integration.
Mobile data has emerged as the backbone of the business model. According to the company, 67.9 percent of Ethiopia’s total revenue now comes from data services, reflecting a shift away from the traditional voice-centric telecom model that has historically dominated African markets.
The accelerating adoption of smartphones, digital services, and internet connectivity has positioned data consumption at the center of Safaricom Ethiopia’s growth strategy as it continues network rollout and customer acquisition efforts across the country.
At the profitability level, the company reported significant improvement in operating performance. EBITDA losses narrowed by 64.8 percent year-on-year, one of the clearest indicators yet that the Ethiopia operation is steadily moving toward commercial sustainability after years of heavy infrastructure investment.
However, currency pressures remain a key challenge. While the company is recording strong operational growth in local-currency terms, the weakening Birr continues to reduce the translated value of revenues when reported in Kenyan shillings. Foreign-denominated contracts and infrastructure costs also remain a structural pressure point, though the company says it is working to localize more of its operations and supply chain over time.
The strong performance from Ethiopia comes as parent company Safaricom PLC posted record group results, including KShs 100 billion in net income and a historic KShs 80 billion dividend payout to shareholders.
Safaricom Ethiopia launched commercial operations in 2022 after Ethiopia opened its telecom sector to competition, ending decades of monopoly dominance by Ethio Telecom. Since then, the company has aggressively expanded network coverage, digital financial services, and mobile internet access as it seeks to establish itself as a major player in one of Africa’s largest untapped telecom markets.
