The state-owned Ethio Telecom has secured 33.8 Billion Birr (or 633 million US Dollars) in revenue in the first half of the 2022/23 Ethiopian fiscal year, achieving 96% of its target.
CEO of Frehiwot Tamirat said the revenue has shown a 19.9% ($105 million) increase from the same months last year.
Mobile voice and Data and Internet services brought in much of the earnings for the telco, making 47.4% and 28% shares of the total revenue, respectively.
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The remaining revenues come from International business 8.4%, Value Added Service 6.5%, infrastructure 2.2%, and other sources 7.5%. The telco secured $64.8 million worth of foreign exchange from international business.
“This achievement is made possible due to network expansion and optimization works targeting to enhance customer experience and satisfaction,” the CEO noted.
The net profit from half-year performance surpassed the 8 billion Birr mark. Ethio Telecom’s newly devised “cost-saving strategy” has been attributed to the growing revenue.
By avoiding unnecessary costs, its official said the company managed to save 3.5 billion Birr, achieving 134% of the plan.
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At the same time, Frehiwot said the company made loan repayments of 3.4 Billion birr or 60.8 million dollars.
The CEO said the repayments were made for the projects carried out by the vendor financing modality “thereby maintaining its good business relationship, credibility, and partnership with its partners.”
“Remarkable Results”
Ethio Telecom started the year with a new three-year growth strategy called LEAD, envisioning to offer services beyond connectivity.
Within the first six months period, the telco managed to increase its total subscribers by 15.1% to 70 million, achieving 98.6% of the target.
Of these, 67.7 million are mobile voice subscribers, 31.3 million are data and internet users, 862, 000 are Fixed Services and 566, 000 are fixed broadband subscribers while the country’s telecom density reaches 65.7%.
The telco officials said these results “can be considered remarkable” especially given the several challenges and competitive market.
The telecom encountered service outages due to security problems while cable vandalism and power interruption remain challenges.
These challenges, the telco said, have compromised expansion and enhancement projects implementation, and supply chain, increasing operational costs and revenue impacts.
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The state-owned telecom company is currently a subject of a partial privatization bid, which was relaunched late last year. The government plans to sell its 40% share of the company to make it more competitive as the country opens up the sector to foreign telecom companies.
