Safaricom Ethiopia has introduced a sweeping 44% common enhance in cell knowledge tariffs, marking its most aggressive pricing adjustment since coming into the Ethiopian market about two years in the past.
The rise, which took impact in late December 2024, is a part of a determined push by the telco to realize break-even targets by March 2027 following an enormous forex devaluation that has gutted its backside line.
The worth hike impacts day by day, weekly, and month-to-month knowledge bundles. Every day bundles have been hit the toughest, with per-unit prices rising between 34% and 67% as the corporate slashed the quantity of knowledge included in entry-level plans. For instance, the favored day by day 1GB bundle noticed its value rise from 30 Birr to 35 Birr ($0.23) whereas the information allocation was minimize by greater than half, successfully doubling the fee per gigabyte for probably the most price-sensitive customers.
Weekly packages have skilled much more drastic shifts, with efficient per-unit value will increase reaching as excessive as 82%. This was largely pushed by the withdrawal of smaller, lower-priced choices, which had been changed by bigger, costlier bundles that require a better upfront dedication from prospects.
Month-to-month knowledge plans additionally noticed substantial changes, with costs rising between 20% and 67% relying on the amount. In the meantime, limitless day by day, weekly, and month-to-month packages elevated by 20% to 25%, and long-term plans corresponding to quarterly and half-year bundles rose by roughly 21%.
This value adjustment is a direct response to the Ethiopian Birr’s dramatic depreciation. Following the federal government’s choice to permit the Birr to drift freely in mid-2024, the forex misplaced over 100% of its worth towards the US Greenback, going from roughly ETB 57 per USD in June 2024 to round ETB 118.99 per USD by September 2024. This price continued to fall, exceeding 150 birr per greenback by mid-November 2025. For Safaricom, this created a important monetary mismatch as a result of roughly 85% of its capital expenditure (Capex) and 50% of its working prices (Opex) had been denominated in international forex (primarily USD). In distinction, all its revenues had been earned within the native Ethiopian Birr.
Regardless of these monetary hurdles, Safaricom’s operational development in Ethiopia stays sturdy. The subsidiary just lately reported explosive 136% development in its service income, which surged to KES 6.2 billion ($48.0 million) for the six months ending September 30, 2025.
The subsidiary, a key a part of Safaricom’s group technique, additionally efficiently narrowed its internet loss by 20.1% to KES 15.5 billion ($120.0 million), an indication that the massive-scale funding is starting to stabilize.
The first driver of the income increase was the large uptake of core telecom companies. Cell knowledge income, the unit’s largest earner, grew by 102.2% to KES 4.1 billion ($31.7 Million). Voice income noticed an much more dramatic enhance of 328.5% to KES 1.4 billion ($10.8 million). This development was additionally fueled by an 83.7% bounce in Safaricom Ethiopia’s buyer base, which now stands at 11.1 million customers.
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