
<p>NAIROBI, July 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya’s biggest telecoms company Safaricom Plc said on Monday its Chief Executive Officer Robert William Collymore had died after a nearly two-year long battle with cancer.</p>



<p>“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing away of Robert (Bob) William Collymore, CEO of Safaricom Plc, which occurred at his home in the morning of 1st July 2019,” the firm said in a statement.</p>



<p>In May, Collymore, 61, had said he would stay in his position for an extra year. He was set to step down in August after nine years at the helm, during which time Safaricom’s share price rose by more than 400%.</p>



<p>The appointment of his successor was delayed as the Kenyan government, which owns 35% of the company, has insisted that a local is picked to succeed him.</p>



<p>&#8220;As a country, we&#8217;ve lost a distinguished corporate leader whose contribution to our national wellbeing will be missed,&#8221; President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/StateHouseKenya/status/1145557495332708352">here</a>&nbsp;posted on his office&#8217;s Twitter account.</p>



<p>&#8220;It is with deep sadness that I have this morning received news of the death of Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore after years of battling cancer. </p>



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;It is with deep sadness that I have this morning received news of the death of Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore after years of battling cancer. As a country, we&#39;ve lost a distinguished corporate leader whose contribution to our national wellbeing will be missed&quot; ~ H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta</p>&mdash; State House Kenya (@StateHouseKenya) <a href="https://twitter.com/StateHouseKenya/status/1145557495332708352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<p>Collymore had travelled to Britain in October 2017 and received treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, and he had since been undergoing treatment for the same condition, the company said.</p>



<p>“In recent weeks, his condition worsened and he succumbed to the cancer at his home in the early hours of Monday&#8230;,” it added.</p>



<p>Safaricom, which is 35% owned by South Africa’s Vodacom , controls about 62% of Kenya’s mobile market, with 30 million subscribers. Britain’s Vodafone has a 5% stake and the Kenyan government owns 35%.</p>



<p>Bob Collymore helped to build Safaricom into East Africa’s most profitable company, thanks to the popular mobile money transfer service M-Pesa and a growing customer base.</p>



<p>Safaricom posted a 13% rise in its core earnings for the full year to end March to 89.6 billion shillings ($875.86 million), driven by growth in M-Pesa. ($1 = 102.3000 Kenyan shillings) (Reporting by Omar Mohammed and George Obulutsa; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Rashmi Aich)</p>


CEO of one of East Africa’s most innovative telecommunications companies, Safaricom dies

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<p>It can be said that in a healthy and thriving social environment, healthy and thriving businesses can exist. On the side-lines of Africa Shared Value Summit, CNBC Africa&#8217;s Makeda Mahadeo spoke to the Senior Manager of Sustainability and Social Policy of Safaricom Karen Basiye, about how the model can be used to elevate community and industry all at once.</p>


How the shared value model can elevate both community and industry


<p>NAIROBI, April 3 (Reuters) &#8211; The proportion of Kenya’s population with access to formal financial services rose to 83 percent from 75 percent in 2016, driven largely by mobile technology, a survey part-conducted by the central bank showed on Wednesday.</p>



<p>The East African nation is one of the world’s leaders in mobile money services, after telecoms operator Safaricom pioneered its M-Pesa service 12 years ago to cater for Kenyans without access to the formal banking network.</p>



<p>M-Pesa has since evolved from a basic SIM card-based money transfer application into a fully-fledged financial service, offering loans and savings in conjunction with local banks, plus merchant payments services.</p>



<p>Airtel Kenya, a unit of India’s Bharti Airtel, and Telkom Kenya Ltd also operate mobile money services in Kenya, as does Equity Group, a lender which runs virtual mobile network operator and financial services platform Equitel.</p>



<p><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/east-africa/2017/01/04/mpesa-economic-impact-on-kenya/">M-pesa has completely transformed Kenya&#8217;s economy, this is how…</a></p>



<p>The survey by the central bank and FSD Kenya, a campaigner for financial inclusion, found that 41 percent of the population had bank accounts, meaning the broader rise in access to financial services had been driven by mobile phone services.</p>



<p>Kenya was ranked third on the continent after South Africa and Seychelles in terms of access to financial services. South Africa’s access stands at 90 percent while Seychelles stands at 95 percent.</p>



<p>Only 14 percent of the Kenyan population had bank accounts in 2006 when the survey was first carried out. The figure rose to 34.4 percent in 2016.</p>



<p>The latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that as of December 2018, Kenya had 31.6 million active users of mobile money transfer services.</p>



<p>Safaricom’s M-Pesa was the market leader with 25.57 million users, followed by Airtel with 3.77 million users. (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Jan Harvey)<br></p>


M-Pesa has completely changed Kenyans’ access to financial services, this is how…


<p>NAIROBI, April 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya’s biggest telecoms operator Safaricom lost a further percentage point of subscriber market share in the period to the end of December, its fifth straight quarterly fall, data from the sector regulator showed on Tuesday.</p>



<p>The firm, part-owned by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone, shed 0.9 percentage points of subscriber market share to 63.3 percent, compared with 71.9 percent in September 2017 when the losing streak started.</p>



<p>Safaricom, which is in a closed period ahead of full year results on May 2, did not comment on the latest figures.</p>



<p>The company began to lose market share after opposition leader Raila Odinga called for consumers to boycott Safaricom, accusing it of playing a role in an August 2017 presidential vote whose outcome he successfully challenged in court.</p>



<p>The losses have been sustained by an aggressive hunt for subscribers by the local unit of India’s Bharti Airtel , which is the second biggest operator in the country.</p>



<p>Airtel Kenya’s subscriber market share jumped to 23.4 percent at the end of December, from 14.9 percent in September 2017.</p>



<p>Airtel said in February it had agreed to merge with number three operator Telkom Kenya, adding to the pressure on Safaricom.</p>



<p>Investors have shrugged off the developments however, with Safaricom’s shares rising 22 percent this year to trade at 28.25 shillings ($0.2804).</p>



<p>According to regulator data in 2015, Safaricom had enjoyed the lion’s share of revenue, with more than 90 percent in key categories such as voice calls. The latest revenue data was not available.</p>



<p>Both Safaricom and Airtel have been increasing their quarterly user numbers but Airtel has reported faster growth in subscribers. ($1 = 100.7500 Kenyan shillings) </p>



<p>(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)</p>


What you need to know about Kenya’s Safaricom losing market share for 5th straight quarter

<p>NAIROBI (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya’s Safaricom lost 1.6 percent of its telecom subscribers’ market share in the quarter ended June, the industry regulator said, marking the third straight quarterly drop for the country’s biggest operator.</p>
<p>The firm, part-owned by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone, had 29.7 million subscribers during the period, data from the regulator Communications Authority (CA) seen by Reuters on Monday showed.</p>
<p>While the users’ base was up 0.7 percent from the previous quarter, Safaricom’s rivals, including Bharti Airtel’s Kenyan unit added more subscribers, resulting in the company’s reduced market share.</p>
<p>Airtel’s subscribers rose 11.9 percent to secure a market share of 21.4 percent. Safaricom subscribers’ market share has plunged to 65.4 percent from 72.6 percent in June last year.</p>
<p>Investors were unlikely to be concerned by the market share drop as Safaricom grew its user base, and it commands a big lead in revenue, said Eric Musau, a research analyst who covers the company at Nairobi-based Standard Investment Bank.</p>
<p>Safaricom and the regulator have been tussling over a report on competition in the industry, which among other things calls for price controls on Safaricom to help smaller operators.</p>
<p>According to regulator data in 2015, Safaricom had enjoyed the lion’s share of revenue, with more than 90 percent in key categories such as voice calls. The latest revenue data was not available.</p>
<p>The fall in Safaricom’s market share comes in the backdrop of a nine-month absence by its Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore for medical treatment.</p>
<p>Collymore returned to Kenya in August and attended at least two public events soon after he resumed work.</p>
<p>“Safaricom is one of the companies which you are quite confident that the CEO isn’t the only person who can run the business. He was ably represented and the organisation generally is quite well-structured,” Musau added.</p>
<p>Reporting by Duncan Miriri, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips</p>


Why Kenya’s Safaricom lost 1.6 percent of its telecom subscribers’ market share in Q2

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<p>Leading digital money transfer service WorldRemit has signed a direct partnership with Kenya’s telcom giant Safaricom to enable instant cross-border money transfers to 28.6 million M-PESA mobile money accounts in Kenya. Sharon Kinyanjyui, Head of East and Central Africa at WorldRemit joins CNBC Africa to shed more light on this deal.</p>


WorldRemit signs partnership with Safaricom to boost remittances

<p>LAGOS, June 25 (Reuters) &#8211; Online sports betting is booming in soccer-mad Nigeria largely thanks to payment systems developed by homegrown technology firms that are starting to make online businesses more viable.</p>
<p>For years, mobile payments failed to take off in Nigeria as they have in countries such as Kenya, where Safaricom’s M-Pesa money transfers have fostered a culture of cashless payments.</p>
<p>Fear of electronic fraud and slow internet speeds have held Nigerian online consumers back but betting firms says the new, fast digital payment systems underpinning their websites are changing attitudes towards online transactions.</p>
<p>“We have seen significant growth in the number of payment solutions that are available. All that is definitely changing the gaming space,” said Seun Anibaba, CEO of Lagos State Lotteries Board, gaming regulator in Nigeria’s commercial capital.</p>
<p>“The operators will go with whoever is faster, whoever can connect to their platform with less issues and glitches,” he said, adding that taxes from sports betting in Lagos State rose 30 percent to 40 percent in 2017 from 2016.</p>
<p>That growth has been matched by a rise in web payments, according to data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), which is owned by the central bank and licensed banks.</p>
<p>In 2016, there were 14 million web payments worth a total 132 billion naira ($420 million). Transactions leapt to 29 million worth 185 billion in 2017 and in the first quarter of 2018 there were nearly 10 million worth 61 billion.</p>
<p>With a young population of nearly 190 million, rising mobile phone use and falling data costs, Nigeria has long been seen as a great opportunity for online businesses &#8211; once consumers feel comfortable with electronic payments.</p>
<p>Online gambling firms say that is happening, though reaching the tens of millions of Nigerians without access to banking services remains a challenge for pure online retailers.</p>
<p>British online betting firm Betway opened its first African business in Kenya in 2015, followed by Uganda, Ghana and South Africa. It launched in Nigeria in January.</p>
<p>“There is a gradual shift to online now, that is where the industry is going,” Betway’s Nigeria manager Lere Awokoya said.</p>
<p>“The growth in the number of fintechs, and the government as an enabler, has helped the business to thrive. These technological shifts encouraged Betway to start operating in Nigeria,” he said.</p>
<h3>FINTECH COMPETITION</h3>
<p>Betting firms cashing in on the soccer frenzy whipped up by Nigeria’s participation in the World Cup say they are finding the payment systems created by local startups such as Paystack are proving popular online.</p>
<p>Paystack and another local startup Flutterwave, both founded in 2016, are providing competition for Nigeria’s Interswitch which was set up in 2002 and was the main platform used by businesses operating in Nigeria.</p>
<p>“We added Paystack as one of our payment options without any fanfare, without announcing to our customers, and within a month it shot up to the number one most used payment option on the website,” said Akin Alabi, founder of NairabBET.</p>
<p>He said NairaBET, the country’s second biggest betting firm, now had 2 million regular customers on its website, up from 500,000 in 2013, and Paystack remained the most popular payment option since it was added in late 2017.</p>
<p>Paystack was set up by two Nigerian computer science graduates, Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, who received early stage funding in Silicon Valley’s Y-Combinator programme.</p>
<p>In December 2016, it raised $1.3 million from investors including China’s Tencent and Comcast Ventures in the United States.</p>
<p>Paystack, based in the frenetic Ikeja district of Lagos, said the number of monthly transactions it processed rose from about 8,000 in early 2016 to more than 900,000 as of June 2018.</p>
<p>“In early 2016 we were processing about $3,000 a month. Today we process well over $11 million every single month,” said Emmanuel Quartey, Paystack’s head of growth.</p>
<p>He said an ecosystem of developers had emerged around Paystack, creating software to integrate the platform into websites. “We have seen a growth in that community and they have carried us along,” said Quartey.</p>
<p>Paystack said it enables payments for a number of betting firms but also a wide range of businesses, from utility services to transport companies to insurer Axa Mansard.</p>
<p>Flutterwave, co-founded by Nigerian entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, is also backed by the Y-Combinator programme as well as venture capitalists Greycroft Partners and Green Visor Capital and the Omidyar Network. It raised $10 million last year.</p>
<h3>FOREIGN INVESTMENT</h3>
<p>Shifts in Nigeria’s payment culture have coincided with the arrival of foreign investors hoping to tap into sports betting.</p>
<p>Industry experts say the sector generates about $1 billion a year and is likely to grow faster than in South Africa and Kenya where the business is more developed.</p>
<p>Russia’s 1XBet and Slovakia’s DOXXbet have both set up in Nigeria in the last two years while Italy’s Goldbet was ahead of the trend, taking a 50 percent stake in market leader Bet9ja when the Nigerian firm launched in 2015.</p>
<p>NairaBET’s Alabi said its sales were split between shops and online but the ease of electronic payments, cost of running shops and ability for customers to avoid the stigma of gambling in public meant online transactions would grow.</p>
<p>But despite advances in digital payments, Kunle Soname &#8211; chairman and co-founder of Bet9ja &#8211; said it was important to have a shop network, not least because many customers still remain reluctant to spend online.</p>
<p>He said the company, with about 60 percent of Nigeria’s sports betting market, had an extensive network. Nigerian betting shops often act as social hubs where customers can watch soccer free of charge while placing bets.</p>
<p>At a BetKing hall deep inside the bustling Oshodi market in Lagos, dozens of soccer fans gathered to watch Nigeria’s final warm up game before the World Cup.</p>
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<p>Richard Onuka, a factory worker who earns 25,000 naira a month, was fixated on a TV screen inside. He said he started gambling three months ago and bets up to 1,000 naira a day.</p>
<p>“Since I have been playing I have not won anything but I believe that one day I will win,” said Onuka. ($1 = 314.5000 naira) (Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram and Didi Akinyelure in Lagos; editing by David Clarke)</p>


Online sports betting is booming in soccer-mad Nigeria, here’s why

<p><em>By the Ashburton Investments Africa fund management team</em></p>
<p>Talk of artificial intelligence (AI) and the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, has created fear in developed countries that many jobs will be lost to machines and robots, and that economic growth will be stifled by technological advances.</p>
<p>We, however, believe that the African continent may well be able to benefit from these technologies in ways that possibly aren’t envisaged in more developed economies. The continent should also be able to avoid the expensive roll out of outdated technologies and leapfrog to the latest innovations.  After all, as Naadiya Moosajee, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper said: &#8220;necessity is the mother of invention and in Africa it has been the mother of innovation.&#8221;</p>
<p>History shows us that people on the continent have been strong adopters of new technologies and that Africa has even bypassed existing developments. After skipping the roll out of land lines, mobile technology users were quick to see the benefits this could bring, especially mobile money. Sub-Saharan Africa, with just under half of all the mobile money platforms in the world, is leading the globe in rolling out financial products to masses of people who were previously excluded from this area of the formal economy. By the end of 2017, there were 122 million active mobile money accounts in the region, with users transacting $20 billion per month (63% of the value of all mobile money transactions in the world).</p>
<p>Even if changes are needed to localise software or technologies, there are enough expert hubs across the continent with strong information technology and engineering capabilities to do this.</p>
<p>Education will be key to making sure that the requisite skills levels are available so that Africa can benefit from new technologies. Although investment in education should be a driver for economic growth, and therefore an important focus for African governments, we have seen that the take up of services and the use of telecommunications has not been limited by current education levels. By way of example, almost 90% of Safaricom’s clients use its mobile money platform, M-Pesa, many of whom are rural and have not had much senior schooling.</p>
<p>Despite the concern that the relatively unskilled African workforce will be left out of the knowledge economy, advances in technology make it possible for niche businesses to access their clients efficiently.  The use of social media as a marketing tool for the myriad of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that Africa is well known for, can enhance sales without excessive costs. New applications also create new opportunities. Uber, as an example, has increased the number of people using taxi services and has also made it possible for entrepreneurs to start a small business, leading to more employment. Think of the increased marketing reach someone running a small bed and breakfast can achieve through a service like AirBnB, and with almost no capital outlay. We are already seeing mobile money platforms used to provide short term loans to SMEs to enable them to expand working capital. Support for and growth in SMEs will help to address Africa’s unemployment, promote inclusive growth and encourage gender equality. If SME’s are going to be the driver of jobs and economic growth in Africa, technology will be a key enabler in this part of the continent’s future.</p>
<p>But, it is not just at the level of mobile technology, mobile money and smartphone applications that the continent will benefit from new technologies. Some of the larger industrial parts of the economy are also being transformed. As advances in solar and other renewable energy reduce the capital costs of installing these systems and the storage of electricity (in batteries and the like) becomes cheaper, we will see the transformation of the electricity grid. In the past, low cost electricity meant building very large power stations (to get low unit costs for power) that used fossil fuels like coal;oil or alternatively very large nuclear power stations. These power stations were connected to a very large electricity grid that ultimately had to be rolled out across the country to connect individual households. A massive capital expense for a poor country before any benefit could be derived.</p>
<p>New and renewable electricity generating technologies will allow regional grids to be developed at a reasonable cost that don’t need to be connected to the national grid. New use of remote sensors will enable easy and remote management of these grids and smart meters will allow efficient and remote billing including prepayment for power to reduce bad debts.</p>
<p>These new technologies can even lead to the smallest grid, an individual home.  In east Africa, combining mobile payment technologies with solar power allows even the smallest home to be lit. The M-Kopa IV Solar Home System includes a solar panel, control unit, three low-energy LED light bulbs (one of which is a portable, rechargeable torch) and a rechargeable radio. The control unit also has a USB port for charging cellphones. Purchasers can make small daily payments using M-Pesa to pay it off over a year.</p>
<p>Although a stable, reliable and reasonably priced electricity supply is key to the industrialisation of Africa, rolling out regional grids into key hubs could avoid the capital cost of expensive country wide transmission networks. The benefits for agricultural processing in the continent with most of the world’s underutilised arable land would be immense. Electricity would also allow the implementation of a cold chain from farm to fork. Agriculture still employs and supports the largest percentage of Africa’s population and improving the productivity of rural farmers and providing a global market for their products. Bring on technology to the continent.</p>


Op:Ed: Africa has the potential to benefit from 4th industrial revolution technologies in ways that aren’t envisaged, here’s how

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<p>In a bid to become one of Africa&#8217;s leading technology powered customer loyalty platforms, Kenya&#8217;s Safaricom-backed mSurvey is set to launch in Nigeria. Kenfield Griffith, CEO, mSurvey joins CNBC Africa to discuss the company&#8217;s plans.</p>


Kenya’s mSurvey heads to Nigeria

<p data-para-word-count="61"><em>This <a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/safaricom-backed-taxi-app-little-seeks-sh-10b-funding-regional-expansion">article</a> first appeared on <a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/">Kenyan Wall Street</a> and is republished with its permission </em></p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">(<a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/">Kenyan Wall Street</a>) Safaricom backed online taxi hailing firm Little is seeking to raise Sh 10 billion ($100M) in funding to fuel its expansion plans across the continent and compete against Uber and other up-and-comers that are each trying to grab a piece of the growing online taxi market.</p>
<div class="mh-content-ad">Kamal Budhabatti, CEO of Craft Silicon, (the parent company of Little) is expected to make several trips to Silicon Valley this quarter to scout for investors to participate in the series B round of funding.</div>
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<div><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2018/01/03/kenya-regulator-ditches-plan-break-safaricom-business-daily/">Kenya regulator ditches plan to break up Safaricom</a></div>
<p data-para-word-count="61">“We want to see if we can get someone from the (Silicon) valley who can come help to scale up the company.” Mr Budhabhatti told Reuters last year.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">So far, Craft Silicon has invested close to Sh 1 Billion ($10M) in the venture with $6 million (Sh600 million) coming from its own pockets while the rest ($4M) from a small group of CEOs who run some of Kenya’s largest companies.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">“Our aim is to become the taxi-hailing firm for the continent. We are competing with some of the bigger players. If you want to win you can’t beat them on capital, you can only beat them on innovations.” he said.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">Little already <a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/safaricom-backed-taxi-hailing-app-little-launching-nigeria" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commenced its operations in Nigeria’s capital city of Lagos</a> last October and is expected to do the same in Ghana in the first quarter of this year. Kamal Budhabatti says they are looking at a number of countries in Southern and Francophone Africa with a target of being in 10 countries by June this year.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">Kamal says they also seek to develop financial services offering building on soaring driver and user numbers of the cab hailing platform. The 18 month old start-up aims to transform into a fintech firm with offerings such as loans, electronic money transfer in what it calls “a small bank that sits inside the Little wallet.”</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">In February this year, Little is also expected to launch a mobile phone-based Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (Sacco) for its drivers dubbed Little Sacco, the country’s first virtual Sacco.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61">Little claims it facilitates as many as 12,000 rides each day, making it the third largest ride-hailing platform in Kenya with approximately 5,000 drivers. Since its launch in July 2016, Little says it has close to 400,000 active riders.</p>
<p data-para-word-count="61"><em>This <a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/safaricom-backed-taxi-app-little-seeks-sh-10b-funding-regional-expansion">article</a> first appeared on <a href="http://kenyanwallstreet.com/">Kenyan Wall Street</a> and is republished with its permission </em></p>


Safaricom backed online taxi hailing firm Little plans to shakeup Africa, this is how…

<p>Kenya’s telecoms regulator has ditched a proposal to break Safaricom up into separate telecoms and financial services businesses due to its dominant size, Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper said on Wednesday.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-44210 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/safaricom_reuters.jpg" alt="Safaricom bags lion's share of Kenyan mobile revenues - regulator" width="450" height="325" /></p>
<p data-reactid="40">An initial draft report on boosting competition in the sector, which was leaked in February 2017, had recommended the break up of the firm that is Kenya’s biggest by market value.</p>
<p data-reactid="41">Business Daily reported the proposal had been dropped from a revised version of the report, which has been circulated to operators for comments.</p>
<p data-reactid="42">The regulator Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), which had already said it would not break up any firm after a huge outcry following the initial draft report, was not immediately available when Reuters sought comment on the report.</p>
<p data-reactid="43">The company, 35 percent owned by South African group Vodacom and 5 percent by Vodacom’s major shareholder Vodafone, has 29.4 million users, 71.9 percent of Kenya’s total.</p>
<p data-reactid="44">It dwarfs the two other operators in the mobile market: the local subsidiary of India’s Bharti Airtel and Telkom Kenya, owned by London-based Helios Partners.</p>
<p data-reactid="45">The smaller operators have long argued that Safaricom enjoys a dominant position because it accounts for 90 percent of revenues in areas such as voice calls and text messages.</p>
<p data-reactid="46">Safaricom rejects the claims of dominance and it has in the past accused the regulator of being preoccupied by helping its smaller rivals rather than focusing on consumers.</p>
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<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="48">Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Himani Sarkar</p>
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Kenya regulator ditches plan to break up Safaricom

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<p>Leading Kenyan Telco Safaricom has announced 9.5 per cent growth in net profits for half year ended September 2017 with its mobile money transfer Mpesa being the key diver for the numbers.</p>


Safaricom profit rise driven by M-Pesa

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<p>One of the most common challenges facing small-scale farmers in Kenya is access to markets and record keeping. In efforts to solve these problems, telecommunications firm Safaricom is now targeting farmers and agricultural-based SMEs.</p>


Safaricom’s ‘Connected Farmer’ app helps connects farmers, customers

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<p>Market capitalisation at the Nairobi Securities Exchange rose by Ksh445 billion in the nine months to September buoyed by performance of banks and Safaricom.</p>


Kenyan bourse buoyed by strong performance of banks, Safaricom

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<p>Safaricom will launch an e-commerce platform in October, aimed at connecting merchants to markets riding on its mobile money network, M-Pesa. The platform is dubbed ‘Masoko’, loosely translated to mean markets.</p>


Safaricom ventures into e-commerce

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<p>Telecoms Giant Safaricom has kicked off the search for a new M-Pesa head after Ronald Webb exited the company after just one year in charge of its mobile money division. Brian Wamatu would hold the position on an interim basis.</p>


Safaricom searches for a new head as executive quits

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<p>Equity Group&#8217;s mobile money and banking platform, Equitel transacted Ksh271.8 billion in the first quarter of 2017, becoming the closest competitor of Safaricom&#8217;s M-Pesa which transacted Ksh890.7 billion in the same period.</p>


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Safaricom

CEO of one of East Africa’s most innovative telecommunications companies, Safaricom dies

How the shared value model can elevate both community and industry

M-Pesa has completely changed Kenyans’ access to financial services, this is how…

What you need to know about Kenya’s Safaricom losing market share for 5th straight quarter

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Safaricom’s ‘Connected Farmer’ app helps connects farmers, customers

Kenyan bourse buoyed by strong performance of banks, Safaricom

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News Tips

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