Safaricom, a publicly owned company headquartered in Kenya, was founded in 1997 and employs approximately 17,370 individuals. It operates under Parent Company Vodafone Africa Consumer and includes subsidiary Safaricom Ethiopia. The company reported $3.3B in revenue as of 2025 and functions as a tier 1 media tech buyer. Safaricom specializes in telecommunications, providing voice, SMS, and high-speed data infrastructure spanning 2G through 5G to over 50 million subscribers. It is also the developer and operator of M-PESA, a mobile money platform. As part of its transformation into a technology firm, Safaricom has expanded into regional markets, notably launching Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia in 2022, and manages digital products across e-commerce, cloud computing, enterprise connectivity, and digital media streaming.
On September 17, 2026, controversy continued around the transaction between Kenya and the Vodacom Group, with critics highlighting the government's handling of the deal that led to Vodacom assuming majority control of Safaricom. Previously, on September 16, Safaricom's Pochi La Biashara active user base reached over 2.2 million, surpassing Lipa na M-Pesa's 1 million merchants, with a GSMA study tracking its growth from 600,000 users in 2024 and noting a focus on women traders. This followed Vodacom's denial on September 15 of allegations that it maintains a parallel copy of the Kenyan national citizen registry to serve customers during outages, specifically mentioning its operation of M-Pesa through Safaricom in Kenya. On September 14, Safaricom issued a step-by-step guide explaining how Pochi la Biashara customers can pay Kenya Power bills and buy electricity tokens directly from their business wallets, after a customer reported difficulties. Earlier, on September 13, the telecommunications company clarified its policy on inactive mobile numbers, stating that lines remaining inactive for 120 days are considered forfeited and may be recycled and allocated to another customer, following a public customer complaint.
Safaricom offers 7 products in the media and telecoms services industry. Safaricom's product portfolio comprises of telecoms, media and TV services and consumer electronics.
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Safaricom's revenues were $3.3B in 2025. Caretta Research has split Safaricom's revenue into 7 different product categories, the largest of which is mobile services, which represents 53% of Safaricom's revenue.
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