Safaricom Ethiopia recorded strong first-quarter growth for FY27, with revenue increasing 66.1% year-on-year to KSh 5.04 billion as active customers approached 15 million and mobile data revenue surged 78.6%. The performance strengthens the operator’s ambition to scale operations and achieve EBITDA break-even during the current financial year.
Service revenue grew 67.6% to KSh 4.95 billion in the three months ended June 2026, while constant-currency growth reached 102.2%, reflecting the impact of the Ethiopian Birr’s depreciation on reported earnings. Total revenue also increased 100.3% on a constant-currency basis.
Mobile data remained the company’s primary growth driver, generating KSh 3.60 billion in revenue and accounting for 72.8% of total service revenue, up from 68.3% a year earlier. Voice revenue rose 36% to KSh 846.1 million, although its contribution to service revenue declined to 17.1% as customers increasingly adopted data services.
Safaricom Ethiopia’s customer base continued to expand rapidly, with three-month active customers rising 46.1% to 14.7 million and one-month active customers increasing 50.4% to 11.63 million. Three-month active data customers grew 47% to 11.52 million, while average data usage per subscriber increased 15.7% to approximately 7.8GB. The company also expanded its network to 3,592 sites, improving network utilisation and supporting higher customer density per site.
M-PESA maintained strong customer and transaction growth, with active users more than doubling to 2.58 million and transaction value increasing 174.8% to KSh 16.03 billion. However, M-PESA revenue declined 15.6% to KSh 4.3 million, indicating that monetisation remains at an early stage despite rapid adoption.
Safaricom Ethiopia said it remains focused on operational efficiency, network expansion and customer growth as it works towards achieving EBITDA break-even during FY27.
