Telco Safaricom released its first true value report today. The report prepared by KPMG seeks to quantify the value of the Telco on the Kenyan economy. Safaricom serves 23 million customers in Kenya, offering services ranging from mobile and fixed voice, SMS, data, internet and M-PESA mobile money transfer service. The Value report shows that telco creates the greatest value for society through the added economic value it generates from its operations and
capital expenditure and through the positive impacts of its M-PESA.
One interesting metric from the report was the impact of Safaricom on Kenya’s economy. The company accounted for a total of 6% of GDP in total. Safaricom generated a total of Kshs. 315 Billion in revenues with direct company operations generating Kshs. 144 Billion. Safaricom directly contributed KES 54.8 billion to Kenyan government revenue in FY15. If the economic activity generated by Safaricom’s operations are taken into account, this increases to KES 127 billion.
Safaricom has also been an employer in the Kenyan economy having sustained over 112 000 direct and indirect jobs. When the effects of the wider economy are included into the accounting the number rises to 682,000 jobs for the FY 2015. This represents about 4% of the total economically active labour force in Kenya.
KPMG used data from industry values in terms of revenue from BMI, income statements from Safaricom for the 2014/15 financial year, National Accounts and labour force for Kenya from the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) to generate the report.
