East Africa's No. 1 mobile firm posts 4pc dip in profitsBy AFRICAREVIEW.COM | Thursday, May 10  2012 at  10:18

East Africa's most profitable company and Kenya's leading mobile telephone service provider Safaricom has posted a 4 per cent dip in after-tax profit for year ending March 2012.

Safaricom posted a $152 million (Sh12.63bn) after-tax profit for year ending March 2012, down from $158m (Sh13.16b) last year.

Total revenue grew by 12.8 per cent to $2bn (107 billion), with money transfer service M-Pesa, data and voice services being the biggest contributors.

M-pesa revenue increased by 43 per cent to $204.4 (Sh16.9bn), while mobile and fixed data revenue increased by 23 per cent to $84.2m (Sh6.6bn).

The firm, while releasing its financial results on Thursday, proposed a dividend payout of 22 cents per share.

“Safaricom operates in an increasingly tough environment characterised by low voice tariffs, intense inflationary pressure, high borrowing costs and foreign exchange fluctuations.

"Despite these conditions, we grew our total customer base by 11 per cent to 19.1 million ($229m) and our revenue by 13 per cent to Kshs.107.0bn. In October, we increased our headline voice tariffs, in response to difficult economic conditions, and this combined with our increased customer base, helped grow voice revenue by 9 per cent in the year," said Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore.