Safaricom

Safaricom PLC is a listed Kenyan mobile network operator headquartered at Safaricom House in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the largest telecommunications provider in Kenya, and one of the most profitable companies in the East and Central Africa region. In July 2025, the company was accused by Kagirison Research of involvement in international crimes, though such accusations never dimmed the record milestone achieved by the company in that month of surpassing the 50 million customer subscriptions ahead of its 25th Anniversary on October 2025. The company offers mobile telephony, mobile money transfer, consumer electronics, ecommerce, cloud computing, data, music streaming, and fibre optic services. It is most renowned as the home of M-PESA, a mobile banking SMS-based service.

Safaricom controls approximately 65.7% percent of the Kenyan market as of 2024 with a subscriber base estimated at approximately 47 million. In July 24th 2025, CEO Peter Ndegwa in a statement said that the company has surpassed 50 million customers on its network. He attributed this to the deep connection the company had built with Kenyans over the past two and a half decades. The company also recently hit 10 million customers in Ethiopia, where it entered in 2022 and has been expanding its regional footprint in the entire East Africa region.

In terms of voice market and SMS market share Safaricom controls 69.2% and 92.2% respectively.

Safaricom was formed in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya. In May 2000, Vodafone Group PLC of the United Kingdom acquired a 40% stake and management responsibility for the company. In 2008, the government offered 25% of its shares to the public through the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Safaricom was ranked as Africa's Best Employer, 67th in the World by the Forbes Global 200 list of the World's Best Employers. In March 2018, Safaricom was ranked as the #1 company to work for in the annual list of BrighterMonday Best 100 Companies to Work for in Kenya, according to career professionals and job seekers.

In 2019 Safaricom partnered with Shared Value Africa Initiative to host the Africa Shared Value Summit.

As of 2020, Safaricom employed over 4,500 people permanently and over 1,900 people on contract. 75 percent of the company's employees were based in Nairobi, the Headquarters, with the remainder based in other big cities like Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret, in which it operates retail outlets. It has nationwide dealerships to ensure customers across the country have access to its products and services.

In November 2012, Safaricom partnered with NCBA Bank and came up with a "revolutionary" banking product, M-Shwari, which allows M-Pesa customers to save and borrow money through mobile phone while earning interest on money saved tapping into an underdeveloped financial services market.

Michael Joseph served as the founding CEO between July 2000 and November 2010. He transformed the telecom from a subscriber base of less than 20,000 to over 16.71 million during his previous tenure. In his last full year as CEO, Safaricom posted a 37 percent rise in pretax profit.

Bob Collymore took over at Safaricom in November 2010, replacing Joseph, who went on to serve in the telco giant's board as the Chairman. Collymore oversaw the introduction into the market of various mobile money products that have given the company leverage among its competitors. Collymore was also at the forefront in leading the charge against regulatory efforts to clip the company's wings due to its size and dominance. After a two-year battle with cancer, Bob, the longest-serving executive died on July 1, 2019, leaving behind a company with doubled user base and profits increased by 380%. Joseph was appointed as interim chief.

Peter Ndegwa was appointed as CEO effective April 1, 2020.

In January 2023, Safaricom made Adil Khawaja chairman of the board of directors.

In May 2024, Safaricom was affected by communication disruptions following the severing of submarine cables across East Africa.

In July 2025, a report by Kagirison Research stated that Safaricom was involved in international crimes that adversely affected Amazon Web Services. The report covered the scope of these crimes and the managers involved in them. The report raised questions about corporate governance of the company, as well as highlighted concerns about the integrity of Kenyan institutions, especially its business press, law enforcement agencies, and regulatory bodies such as the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.