Safaricom Ethiopia’s customer numbers hit 2.8 million mid this month, less than six months after its entry into the populous country. Safaricom launched operations in Ethiopia on October 6 last year, hitting 740,000 subscribers in one month. The telco also earned Sh98.3 million in the first month.
“As of mid-March, our customer base in the Ethiopian market stood at 2.8 million,” said Safaricom ’s public relations manager Christopher Karanja.
In mid-November, the firm said the customer numbers had grown beyond one million. Safarirom is pitted against State-owned Ethio Telecom in the race to win the market that boasts 112 million people.
Safaricom is the major shareholder in the Ethiopian consortium which includes UK’s Vodafone, South Africa’s Vodacom, Sumitomo Corporation and British International Investment.As at 2021, Ethio Telecom had 58.7 million subscribers. Its customer numbers translate to the biggest single-country subscriber base of any operator on the continent. Safaricom is riding on its Kenyan experience and provision quality and unique services to woo customers. It is also aggressively marketing its brand in the market where consumers have only had one provider for decades.
Safaricom has maintained its control of the Kenya market ahead of Airtel Kenya and Telkom Kenya thanks mainly to massive investment in infrastructure and innovations such as M-Pesa.
