Safaricom shareholders will next month receive an interim dividend payment of Sh. 22.04 billion. This dividend will translate to a payment of Sh. 0.55 per share.
“The Board of Safaricom PLC is pleased to announce that it [has] approved payment of an interim dividend of Sh. 0.55 per ordinary share for the year ending March 31, 2025,” Safaricom said in a notice.
“The interim dividend will be payable to shareholders on the register of members as at the close of business on 3rd March 2025 and will be paid on or about March 31, 2025.”
The dividend payment comes after the company’s half year financial results announced in November 2024 in which net profit dropped to Sh. 28.1 billion for the period ended September 2024. This performance represented a drop of 17.7 per cent from Sh. 34.1 billion and was attributed to forex loses from Safaricom Ethiopia.
Safaricom Ethiopia marks milestone with over 10 million M-Pesa customers
The company took a Sh. 17.5 billion hit after the Ethiopian currency Birr depreciated by 51.5 per cent over the six month period under review. This resulted in Safaricom revaluing its liabilities including foreign currency borrowings and lease agreements.
In addition, Safaricom revised its break-even year target from the initial four-year target of March 2026 to the financial year ending in March 2027 for its Ethiopia subsidiary.
In February 2025, though, the Ethiopia subsidiary marked a fresh milestone with over ten million customers. In the twelve months to December 2024, Safaricom Ethiopia’s M-Pesa customers increased from 3.1 million to 10.8 million.
The telecommunications firm said that this growth in its customer base was largely driven cross-border money transfer services, data and airtime purchases.
“We have so far registered 10.8 million M-Pesa customers as of end of December 2024, cumulative since inception. We are continuously assessing suitable use cases to drive higher usage,” said Safaricom. M-Pesa services were launched in Ethiopia in August 2023, about 10 months after the company launched services in the country.
The telecommunications giant is currently expected to conclude its current financial year in March this year.
