Kenya’s Safaricom sees strong EBIT growth on Kenyan and Ethiopian performance

Kenya’s biggest telecoms operator Safaricom said on Thursday its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) grew 31.9% year-on-year to 61.6 billion Kenyan shillings ($479.38 million) for the first half of the year to the end of September.

The company, partially owned by South Africa’s Vodacom , also posted a 14.0% increase in group service revenue to 181.4 billion shillings, while its net income climbed 21.7% to 36.7 billion shillings during the same period
Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s group chief executive officer, attributed these results to robust performance across all business sectors in Kenya and Ethiopia.

“Despite the short-term challenges, we remain confident in the long-term commercial success of our Ethiopian business, and we are very encouraged by the commercial acceleration,” Ndegwa said.