Safaricom Ethiopia Reaches 15 Million Subscribers, Faces Profitability Test
Safaricom Ethiopia has crossed 15 million subscribers at its five-year mark, a milestone reached in under four years of active operations in Africa's second-most-populous country. The operator now faces the challenge of converting rapid subscriber growth into a commercially sustainable business.
Safaricom Ethiopia: 15 million users, 50 cents a month
The subscriber number is real. The revenue story underneath it is uncomfortable.
Safaricom Ethiopia's 5.69 million M-Pesa users generated roughly KSh100 million in an entire financial year — about 50 cents per customer per month in transaction fees. In Kenya, M-Pesa is the business. In Ethiopia, where 99 percent of small payments still happen in cash, it is barely a rounding error.
That gap is the whole profitability question in one number. Data revenue is doing the heavy lifting for now, but data tariffs just rose 44 percent to offset birr depreciation — there's a ceiling on how hard you can push that lever. Break-even by March 2027 is the projection; whether M-Pesa ever replicates its Kenyan pull in a cash-first economy is the bet inside the bet.
2 sources
- Safaricom Ethiopia crosses 15m subscribers at five-year mark · techtrendske.co.ke · T2
- 15 million customers later, Safaricom Ethiopia must turn rapid growth into a commercially sustainable business · techtrendske.co.ke · T2