Giant telecommunication company, Safaricom PLC has expanded to 26 cities in Ethiopia; a month since its launch in the country.
The company launched in Ethiopia on October 7, 2022 in an event graced by President William Ruto and Peime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The launch followed successful trials in 10 cities.
The trials began a year after Ethiopia awarded an operating licence to a consortium that is led by Safaricom.
The consortium placed a KSh 85 billion bid to bag the licence.
The Safaricom consortium pledged to invest another KSh 800 billion over the next 10 years to roll out telecommunication services.
“Global Partnership for Ethiopia is a consortium of reputable telecom companies providing service to over 750 million customers all over the world and committed to create new jobs, support the economy through introduction of new and efficient services,” said Ethiopia Communication Authority (ECA) Director General Balcha Reba.
In other news, Safaricom made KSh 98 million in revenue in 30 days since launching in Ethiopia.
The high revenue was attributed to its service operations and sale of handsets, the company said in a statement.
“Safaricom Ethiopia Service Revenue for the period ended September 30, 2022, was Ksh9.1 million while total revenue including handsets sales was Kshs 98.3 million,” the company said.
According to CEO Peter Ndegwa, since its launch in the country, the company has since registered over 740,000 users; with 20,000 people subscribing daily.
“Most importantly, we are enthusiastic about the growth opportunity in Ethiopia, with 20,000 new customers joining the network daily.
“We are also encouraged by data and voice usage levels with 711 MBs average usage per active data customers and 30 Minutes of Use per active voice customers for October,” he said.
Safaricom invested KSh 72 billion in launching operations in Ethiopia.
