MILESTONE | Over $44 Billion Transacted Through TeleBirr Since its Introduction in 2021, Says Ethiopia’s Top Telco

Ethiopian leading telco, Ethio Telecom, increased its subscriber count by 8.9% from the same period last year [2023], reaching 78.3 million, part of several positive results announced by the companu on July 10 2024.

Revenue for the financial year 2023/2024 increased by 21.7% compared to the results announced the previous year [2022/2023], reaching Birr 93.7 billion ($1.64 billion). This is an increase of Birr 16.7 billion ($289.5 million) from 2023 while profits increased by 20.9%.

“Our company’s unaudited report shows that Earning Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation & Amortization (EBITDA) reached a rate of 47%, achieving 102.4% of our target. Our net profit reached 21.79 billion Birr showing a 20.9% (3.76 billion Birr) increase compared to last year same period achieving 108.7% of our target,” the telco said.

TeleBirr, Ethiopia’s leading mobile money service run by the telco, also continues to witness growth, having reached 47.5 million subscribers in the financial year. Moreover, 1.81 trillion Birr ($31.3 millon) was transacted through the platform in the budget year and a total of 2.55 trillion birr ($44 billion) has been transacted across the economy since its launch in May 11 2021, Ethio said.

TeleBirr continues to perform well in the face of competition from Safaricom Ethiopia which entered the market in October 2022, and by February 2024, it had over 3 million customers on its mobile money service, MPESA. On the telecommunications operations, Safaricom has covered 33% of the population in Ethiopia.

However, Ethio Telecom maintains a lead, thanks to its commitment to excellence, pointing out the continued efforts to enhance its services and coverage too.

“This past budget year, we focused on several key initiatives to further our growth. These included expanding and enhancing our telecom and digital infrastructure to meet the increasing demand for high-quality services. We also prioritized continuous network optimization and invested in upgrading our customer service systems across multiple channels to deliver efficient and personalized support.”

Expansion of the 4G mobile network was completed at 966 sites, and the 3G network was expanded at 682 sites. So far 4G network service has been extended to an additional 124 cities and districts, increasing the total number of accessible 4G cities from 300 to 424.

At the same time, the company increased 5G stations to 189 and consequently 5G service is now available in 4 regional capitals, with implementation work underway to make 4 more cities 5G-ready.