EAST AFRICA | Safaricom Ethiopia Customers Grow to 4.6 Million in Q2 2024 While Rival, Ethio Telecom, Has 78 Million

Safaricom Ethiopia customer base grew by about 250,000 subscribers to 4.6 million in the quarter two (Q2 2024) ending July 2024 as the telco rolls out an aggressive plan to grow user base.

Between January and March 2024, the company had 4.35 million subscribers, local reports indicate.

“As of end of June 2024, we had 4.6 million three-month active customers on our network and one-month active customers closed at 3.4 million customers,” Safaricom Ethiopia said in the latest result.

“Commercial momentum in the period was supported by growth in customers since launch of operations in Tigray region. Overall Service Revenue ARPU as at end of Q1 FY25 was KES 155.3 (+87.9% YoY).”

Meanwhile, leading telco, Ethio Telecom, recently revealed that it now has 78.3 million subscribers, part of several positive results announced by the company on July 10 2024.

TeleBirr, Ethiopia’s leading mobile money service run by the telco, also continues to witness growth, having reached 47.5 million subscribers in the financial year.

TeleBirr continues to perform well in the face of competition from Safaricom Ethiopia which entered the market in October 2022, and by February 2024, it had over 3 million customers on its mobile money service, MPESA. On the telecommunications operations, Safaricom says it has covered 33% of the population in Ethiopia.

Locals seem to be doubtful if Safaricom can surmount TeleBirr in Ethiopia given there isn’t any unique offering it is introducing.

In a recent article titled Why I Won’t Swap My Ethio Telecom SIM for Safaricom Ethiopia, Journalist Addis Assefa has also questioned the cost of their products:

“It doesn’t matter how super fast your connection is, but I, and many cost-sensitive users, are not willing to spend a lot more than what we spend with Ethio Telecom on your 100GB per month bundles,” said Assefa.

“With Ethio Telecom boasting over 76 million subscribers, let’s forget the notion of ‘reaching the unreached.’ For Safaricom Ethiopia to survive, you need to have a convincing reason for people to switch or at least use your services in tandem with Ethio Telecom’s.

“Come up with a mind-boggling, innovative idea that forces us to use your services. Collaborate. No offense to anyone, but you should have been the one to introduce Teletv-like platforms. Find ways to make it a necessity, not just an option,” he said.