Kenya’s Safaricom officially launched its Ethiopian network becoming the first private operator in one of Africa’s largest telecoms markets Ethiopia’s governments welcomed M-Pesa.
Safaricom Ethiopia’s launch follows a ten-city pilot and a phased launch across the country, which started in August 2022 in the city of Dire Dawa, 350km east of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Until now, state-owned Ethio Telecom operated as a monopoly with 54 million subscribers in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country with an estimated population of 118 million people.
Safaricom Ethiopiaso far the only competitor to state-owned Ethio Telecom—plans to roll out services in 14 additional cities between now and April 2023 to cover 25 cities and enable it to meet the 25% population coverage obligation in its licence.
Safaricom will likely build its offering on superior service—which means significant and rapid building out of its network coverage.