Safaricom Ethiopia reached 14.7 million active customers in June this year, boosting its drive towards attaining profitability at the EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) level by March 2027.
The telecoms operator saw its number of three-month active customers rise by one million in the quarter to June 2026, from 13.63 million 90-day active customers as of the end of March this year.
The rise in the number of customers mirrors the underlying momentum of the startup, which is expected to achieve break-even at the EBITDA level in the next eight months.
The number of active customers on the network soared 46.1 percent year-on-year from 10.06 million in June 2025.
The increased number of active customers improves the operator’s ability to generate revenue across its telecoms business, including voice, data, SMS and mobile money services (M-Pesa).
Data customers increased to 11.52 million three-month active customers, while voice closed the period with 12.03 million active customers, registering 37.02 percent year-on-year growth.
M-Pesa continued to show traction, albeit trailing voice and data uptake, and reached 5.69 million three-month active customers during the same period.
Safaricom noted that its mobile money service is still laying the groundwork for a broader digital ecosystem, supporting merchant payments, enterprise solutions and advancing financial inclusion.
‘Overall, the growth across total, voice, data and M-Pesa customers underscores Safaricom Ethiopia’s sustained commercial momentum and its role in advancing digital and financial inclusion,’ Safaricom said in a quarterly update of its Ethiopia business.
The strong momentum for the unit was delivered against the backdrop of a challenging macroeconomic environment defined by a resurgence in inflation and currency weakness, albeit at a slower rate.
Ethiopia’s inflation rose to 13.4 percent in May from 11.7 percent in April, reflecting renewed price pressures as food and transport costs rose due to higher global oil prices following the conflict in the Middle East.
The inflation rate, however, remains benign and is far removed from previous periods of hyperinflation, when changes in consumer prices persistently remained above 20 percent.
The Ethiopian birr (ETB) depreciated 16.8 percent between June 2025 and June 2026 against the US dollar.
Safaricom’s Ethiopian unit more than halved its losses in the year to March 2026 to Sh21.2 billion, supported by an improved macroeconomic environment and tariff reviews on voice and data services implemented in late 2025.
‘The breakeven projected is on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA),’ Dilip Pal, Safaricom Plc Chief Finance Officer, said previously.
‘If you look at the second half of FY26 (October 2025-March 2026), the loss reduction is greater than in the first half, and it shows that we are geared for positive EBITDA breakeven in FY27 (March 2027).’
The unit, known as Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia (STE), posted Sh14.08 billion in service revenues in the year ended March 2026.
Voice revenue was recorded at Sh3.01 billion, rising 156.3 percent year-on-year, while data revenues were up 69 percent to Sh9.56 billion.
Messaging revenues grew by 106.6 percent over the same period to Sh170 million, while the fixed service business posted Sh200 million in revenues. M-Pesa lagged behind all major revenue heads for the unit, posting revenues of Sh100 million, but grew by 15.2 percent during the review period.
The slow uptake of M-Pesa in the market has been attributed to cash dominance, with the telco previously noting that the widespread use of cash, especially for small-value transactions, remained a challenge even as it saw an opportunity to digitise payments.
According to a 2021 report authored by the World Bank, cash in Ethiopia remains an overwhelmingly dominant payment method, a sharp contrast to other markets in the region, including Kenya, where non-cash payments have gained a foothold.