Safaricom’s M-Pesa revenue surged 48.5 percent to record a whooping Ksh.13 trillion up from Ksh.9 trillion.
The surge in revenue is anchored on the M-Pesa App, launched on June 23 this year that has seen over four million Kenyans download the App.
Safaricom launched M-Pesa App on the back of heightened COVID-19 pandemic, and was seen as the telco’s strategy to beat the pandemic challenges to increase its revenue bracket.
“Beyond the economy recovering and us getting back to charging, there has been a significant focus on innovation. We have for instance recently launched the M-Pesa application which has already seen four million downloads in three to four months,” said Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa.
In six months to September 30, 2021, however, data from Safaricom shows that Kenyans stayed away from the once commonly used SMS as a means of communication and shifted to online messaging.
Safariom’s messaging revenue has declined by 18.3 percent to Ksh.5.9 billion while mobile data revenue has grown by 6.3 percent to Ksh.23.6 billion.
Its voice revenues surged 3.2 percent to Ksh.41.5 billion.
Ndegwa made the revelation when he announced Safaricom’s Half Year results for the year ended September 30, 2021 when it posted Ksh.37 billion net profit up from Ksh.33 billion recorded same period last year, representing a 12 percent growth.
During the last six months, Safaricom has raised its capital expenditure by a marginal 0.3 percent to Ksh.22.8 billion.