Safaricom surpasses 15 million subscribers as it marks five years

Safaricom is marking five years since it received a full-service unified telecom operating license from the Government of Ethiopia on 9 July 2021, with the company having surpassed 15 million 90 days active subscribers during this period.

The milestone comes less than four years after we began commercial operations in October 2022, following an initial period focused on establishing the business, building our network, and putting in place our sales and distribution infrastructure.

We have surpassed 15 million 90 days active subscribers within four years of commercial operations, marking one of the fastest customer growth journeys among new telecom operators that have built their network and customer base from the ground up.

Since receiving our license, we have built more than 3,500 network sites, with our network now reaching around 60% of the country's population. All of our sites are 4G-enabled and 5G ready, making our network state-of-the-art. That makes our expansion one of the fastest network rollouts by a greenfield telecom operator in Africa, and one of the fastest globally for a new entrant building a nationwide network from scratch.