Kenyan network giant Safaricom is poised to announce its full year results tomorrow amid signs of better performance after the company announced a jump in net profits in the first half of the year.
In the company’s November announcement net profit was up to KSh7.77 billion (US$91.7 million) from KSh4.01 billion (US$47.7 million) in 2011 a relief for many investors after the company announced the previous year a drop of 48 per cent.
The 93 per cent jump was a result of a revenue increase of 19 per cent to KSh37.4 billion (US$446 million), with non-voice revenues (M-Pesa, data and SMS) being the best performers up by 28 per cent to KSh18.7 billion (US$223 million).
Separately, in the non-voice revenue segment fixed data was best, performing up by 60 per cent, followed by M-Pesa at 32 per cent and mobile data at 22 percent.
Voice and M-Pesa remained the largest contributors of revenue, contributing 5.9 percent and 2.55 percent respectively.
Safaricom attributed the good performance on a slow down in the price wars that had previously hit the company hard.
In the second half of the year, investors will be watching to see what effect the 10 per cent tax on M-Pesa has had.
The company will however be hoping for a good performance in the data and internet service segment where the company has increased its market share in the last few months, according to the latest Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), report from 66.2 per cent in September 2012 to 72.6 per cent in December 2012.
Safaricom has also increased its subscription market share by 1.3 per cent between September and December that resulted in a 0.8 per cent increase in voice traffic, which contributes the largest share of the company’s revenue.
The Safaricom share price is also up ahead of the announcement closing the day at KSh6.95 shillings on Friday as compared to KSh3.25 shillings during last year’s announcement.
