LEADING Kenyan Telco Safaricom yesterday held its inaugural investors day to update stakeholders on its journey to become a purpose-led technology company by 2025.
The hybrid investor day themed “Driving Purpose-Led Growth“, brought together the investor community, analysts and regulatory bodies, including representation from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) with an attendance of over 100 investors in-person and online.
During the forum, Safaricom executives briefed the audience on its vision and strategic opportunities around its key business areas including sustainable business and social impact, financial services, big data, technology, and enterprise business opportunities for both private and public sector. Investors were also taken though a detailed progress update of Safaricom Ethiopia.
Additionally, there were experiential demonstrations that showcased different products across all the business segments and brought to life key innovations that the businesses have implemented which gave the investors a “hands on feel”. The event also provided an opportunity to the investors to engage firsthand with the senior leadership teams for both Kenya and Ethiopia through speed networking sessions.
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.”
Ndegwa added, ” We believe that our commitment to purpose-led growth will not only create long-term value for our shareholders, but also good for our customers and the communities we serve. As we delved deeper into our purpose commitments and our journey to date, we affirmed our belief in meeting our targets”.
In his remarks, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC CEO, Anwar Soussa, shared insights on the opportunities for the company’s growth in Ethiopia, leveraging on innovation and its quality of services, including internet connectivity.
“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.
“Our growth trajectory is even more exciting for us as we look forward to offering financial services through M-PESA. We are finalizing our commercial and technical readiness and we expect to launch operations within the upcoming financial year,” he added.
In his business update, Anwar further noted that as of February 2023, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC had penetrated around 10% of the population translating to over 11 million people, had 847 network sites in 25 cities, had onboarded 28,000 retailers, 103 distributor shops and 5,000 acquisition agents. The company had also crossed the 2 million mark in customer gross adds.
Additionally, voice and data usage had averaged 64 minutes and 1.9 GB respectively per customer in a month.
Safaricom’s investor forum is part of the company’s efforts to engage with its business partners and stakeholders about its operations, strategies, and impact.
