Next month, Safaricom—the company that redefined Kenyan telecom—celebrates its 25th anniversary. It’s more than a quarter-century in business; it’s a journey from a modest Telkom Kenya arm to becoming an economic cornerstone. At Vodafone UK’s London base, CEO Peter Ndegwa leaned back with a measured pride that’s familiar to leaders who’ve steered true transformation.
Roots in Guinness, Wings in M-Pesa
Before leading Kenya’s most valuable enterprise, Ndegwa spent 15 years crafting global marketing stories for Guinness and other Diageo brands. He jokes that he once worried about splitting the “G” when pouring a pint. These days, his concern is expanding digital services for millions of Kenyans. Under his watch, annual revenues have breached US $3 billion, operating profit hovers at $1.2 billion, and M-Pesa users don’t just number; they flourish—36 million monthly transactors, to be precise. The mobile network reaches 95 percent of the population, a testament to how deeply built infrastructure fuels inclusion.
Local Innovation, Clear Vision
There’s no complacency in Safaricom’s outlook. The company sees opportunity in the gaps: only half their customers use 4G or 5G devices. And so, they make them. Through ‘Neon’ phones, assembled locally via a joint venture involving EADAK and partners from Shenzhen, they’re answering the device affordability conundrum head-on. Around 23 million of their 50 million subscribers already access 4G, and that number is growing between 20 to 30 percent annually.
Broadband, too, is on the table. With only half a million Kenyan premises connected—and another two million reachable via fibre or satellite—Safaricom still has miles of optic fibre to lay and communities to connect. On the 5G front, only a third of infrastructure supports it today—but the goal is clear: all sites must be 5G-ready by 2029, driven by an existing base of 1.1 million 5G users as of March 2025.
Ethiopia: Venture, Risk, Promise
Kenya may have birthed the business, but Ethiopia is where Safaricom’s future sprouted. Licensed in 2021, the subsidiary already serves 10 million customers through about 3,000 mobile sites—half the throughput Safaricom runs in Kenya. That scale, scaled fast, has come with a cost: a negative EBIT of KES 61.1 billion. It’s a startup cycle writ large—heavy capital expenditures and the shock of a halved birr during 2024’s currency reform rattled the bottom line.
Still, Ndegwa is confident. He’s sticking to the 2027 target for breaking even on EBIT. With Ethiopia’s massive population and mobile penetration only around 50 percent—an addressable market of some 60 million potential customers—Safaricom aims for 15 million subscribers by end-2025, and is eyeing a 50 million-strong base within the next decade.
Strength in Home, Vision Abroad
All this underscores what the Kenyan arm of the business still means. A 13 percent jump in EBIT to KES 158 billion highlights the firm’s enduring strength. Many of the US $2.5 billion that landed in Ethiopia—via licensing fees and loans—have already been repaid. As Ndegwa says plainly: Kenya’s performance is not just stable—it funds ambition.
And while calls from government quarters for structural changes rang out, Ndegwa dismissed any breakup of the company’s units as unnecessary. He sees no value in dismantling what he views as a unified impact engine.
The Purpose That Powers Profit
If the numbers don’t tell the whole story—if talk of cash cows and EBIT falls short—it’s Ndegwa’s closing remark that does. “We started with purpose, then customer focus, and then pushed innovation,” he says. It’s this sequence, he believes, that’s made Safaricom more than a utility—it’s a force for everyday progress.
In 25 years, Safaricom has done more than make calls or push data. It has reimagined life on a continent, and today, the company stands at a crossroads of legacy and innovation—ready to take the next leap, grounded in the same conviction that got it here.
Go to TECHTRENDSKE.co.ke for more tech and business news from the African continent.
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