Safaricom Ethiopia Appreciates Government Institutions Support for Achievements

Addis Ababa: Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia CEO Vanhelleputte has appreciated government institutions for their support in registering the achievements which would have never been possible without their collaboration.Safaricom Ethiopia CEO Wim Vanhelleputte told ENA that 'the company's commercial services would have never been possible without the support and collaboration of the government institutions in the country.'The company has reached almost half of the Ethiopian population with its 4G mobile internet services in about two years after launching commercial operations.Launching commercial services in October 2022 with about 1,000 telecom towers, it has tripled the telecom towers, he added.'That means we are providing 4G mobile internet data services to almost 50 percent of the population (of Ethiopia).'According to the CEO, the telecommunications company has been partnering with Ethio telecom to share infrastructure.'Out of the 3000 towers, we have built 60 percent completely ourselve s; and we have some passive infrastructure sharing agreement with ethio telecom for about 40 percent of our towers. When we do infrastructure sharing, we still put our own telecom equipment, but we are using towers from their site with a sharing agreement,' he elaborated.The company has been working closely with the various ministries, institutions. and all regional states as well as the Office of the Prime Minister, it was learned.Vanhelleputte disclosed that Safaricom has created over 1,000 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs, contributing to the country's economic growth.In terms of customers, we have reached almost 5 million active customers, and we have kept on growing quite a lot over the last few months, he stated.'We are very hopeful that within less than a year, we would actually grow from 5 million to more than 10 million in the next 12 months. We're really in a very aggressive growth phase, and that is quite exciting.'Safaricom has almost 200 shops across the entire country. And Vanhelle putte stated that the company is really scaling up. 'It has been a very exciting journey for the company. We are very happy about the progress that we have made so far.'Furthermore, the CEO reaffirmed Safaricom's commitment to contribute to digital Ethiopia. The company's focus on digital innovation is evident in the launch of MPESA, a mobile money platform that aims to contribute to Ethiopia's transition to a cashless society.'One of the reasons why we want to invest in Ethiopia is to contribute to the government agenda of digital Ethiopia,' he pointed out, adding that the company will significantly contribute to transforming Ethiopia to a digital cashless society.While acknowledging challenges in accessing certain payment services, Vanhelleputte expressed optimism about future expansion into areas like fuel and tax payments.'We are hopeful that we will be able, together with all the other commercial banks and the other digital payment platforms, to offer our payment services to a wide range of payme nt or payment solutions, just like we recently did for the Ethiopian Electric Utility. So now also our MPESA customers can do digital payment of the electricity bill.'Safaricom Ethiopia has further pledged to invest in expanding its network coverage to reach 80-90 percent of the population and introduce new digital solutions.The company is also set to launch bank saving and lending products through MPESA in the near future, the CEO revealed.Source : Ethiopian News Agency