Sometime last week, telco Safaricom hosted its first-ever investor day event with the aim of updating its stakeholders on the company’s journey to becoming a purpose-led technology company by 2025.
The hybrid event, which was attended by over 100 investors both in-person and online, brought together various players in the investor community, including representatives from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and the Capital Markets Authority.
READ: Safaricom Ethiopia Firsthand Experience: Great Customer Care Support and More
At the event, Safaricom’s top executives shared the company’s vision and strategic plans for its key business areas, including sustainable business and social impact, financial services, big data, technology, and enterprise business opportunities for both private and public sectors.
The carrier also provided an update on its progress in Ethiopia, as well as hands-on demonstrations of its different products across all business segments.
Investors also had the opportunity to engage with Safaricom’s senior leadership teams in both Kenya and Ethiopia through speed networking sessions.
Safaricom has been operating in Ethiopia for a couple of months now. In the next few months, it will be available in more than 25 cities and towns in Ethiopia.
It also plans to launch M-PESA, a mobile money product that has been massively successful in Kenya since its reveal back in 2007 in Kenya.
It should be remembered that Safaricom signed up its one-millionth customer back in November 2022, a few weeks after its commercial launch in October of the same year.
What has Safaricom Ethiopia achieved to date so far?
Well, Safaricom Ethiopia is expanding its business in the country, which has a population of around 120 million people, 35% financial inclusion, 57% mobile penetration, and an annual inward remittance of about $4.2 billion.
READ: Safaricom Makes Great Strides in Ethiopia with More Than 1M Customers, 561 Network Sites
As said, Safaricom Ethiopia aims to offer financial services through M-PESA and is finalizing its commercial and technical readiness for launching operations soon.
As of February 2023, Safaricom had penetrated about 10% of the Ethiopian population, with over 11 million people, 847 network sites in 25 cities, 28,000 retailers, 103 distributor shops, and 5,000 acquisition agents.
Customers are using an average of 64 minutes of voice and 1.9 GB of data per month.
Quotes
Speaking at the event, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said, “We are excited to host our first-ever investors’ day, which is an important platform for us to engage with our stakeholders, including investors and analysts, to drive a deeper understanding of our strategy, operating model, execution plans and our vision as we strive to fully transform into a technology company by 2025. At Safaricom, we are committed to driving purpose-led growth, which means transforming lives through innovation and technology for a better society.”
“With a population of approximately 120 million people and financial inclusion at about 35%, 57% mobile penetration and annual inward remittance of about $4.2 billion, Ethiopia offers a great opportunity to grow the business to the Kenya level in 10 years,” said Anwar Soussa, Safaricom Ethiopia MD.
