Ethiopia: the country already building 2030
Ethiopia may have just welcomed 2019 on the calendar, but its digital ambitions are moving on a clock that’s future-focused. For Safaricom Ethiopia, more than 15 million active customers mark the start of a much bigger story, and one that matters across Vodacom Group.
From first connections to 15 million customers, Safaricom Ethiopia celebrated the people, teamwork and trust behind an extraordinary journey.
September brings a particular kind of colour to Ethiopia. Yellow adey abeba flowers appear as the rainy season gives way to clearer skies, heralding Enkutatash – the Ethiopian New Year. Children sing, families gather, and students prepare for a new school year.
This year, those celebrations welcomed 2019.
Ethiopia follows a 13-month calendar that differs from the Gregorian calendar by roughly seven to eight years. This distinctive feature often surprises visitors. For those of us getting to know the country, it’s also a useful reminder: Ethiopia does things its own way.
That includes building its digital future. In a country of more than 130 million people, Safaricom Ethiopia has grown from its first connections in 2022 to more than 15 million 90-day active customers. Understanding that pace starts with the people who made it possible.
An extraordinary place to build a business
New year, many traditions. Enkutatash brings Ethiopia’s rich cultures and diverse communities together in celebration and fresh beginnings.
Ethiopia covers over 1.1 million square kilometres and about two-thirds of its population is under the age of 30. Its scale and youthful energy make it an extraordinary place to build a business.
Across regions, languages and communities, customers have different needs. A proposition that works in one place may require a rethink elsewhere.
“One of our earliest lessons was that we could not import a blueprint from another market.”
That lesson will sound familiar to many of us across our continental footprint. Group experience brings valuable knowledge. Making it work locally takes patience and a willingness to change your assumptions.
In Ethiopia, customers are helping to set that pace. Wim describes them as informed, ambitious and vocal about what they expect. Their appetite for digital services comes with a clear challenge to the business: keep improving.
Before the millions, a first connection
To understand the journey, Wim would take us to Dire Dawa, where, in August 2022, Safaricom Ethiopia began connecting its first customers. Coverage initially stopped at the city’s boundaries. While the team expanded the network and completed interconnection with the other national operator, those customers could reach only a limited community of Safaricom users. But they bought SIM cards anyway.
“Dire Dawa reminds us that our growth did not begin with a headline figure; it began with people who believed in the promise of a new network,” Wim says.
Earning that confidence meant building several things at once, including network sites, distribution, a new brand and a team customers could rely on. The business needed the speed of a start-up alongside the safety, quality and discipline expected of an established African technology communications company.
Today, more than 3 600 sites provide coverage to around 60% of the population. Customers consume 8GB of data a month on average.
Those numbers show how quickly the network has become part of daily life, but also how much work lies ahead.
The people who make growth happen
Some of that work happens at a roadside or a neighbourhood shop, where a young person helps a customer make their first Safaricom connection.
On a typical day, about 7 000 brand ambassadors (BAs) work across Ethiopia, collectively selling around 40 000 SIM cards. Each conversation is a chance to explain a service, making something unfamiliar feel usable to a customer. That kind of support can be as important as the signal itself.
The wider business supports nearly 1 000 direct jobs and more than 20 000 indirect jobs across its network of suppliers, partners, distributors and BAs. Growth creates livelihoods while bringing services closer to communities.
But coverage and distribution are only part of digital inclusion. People also need affordable devices, the skills to use them and services that earn a place in their lives. Device financing is one way Safaricom Ethiopia is helping more people take that next step.
Making money move more easily
A city on the rise, a country connecting: Addis Ababa’s skyline reflects the ambition driving Ethiopia towards its digital future, with Safaricom helping more people become part of the story.
The same practical thinking shapes M-PESA’s next chapter.
Mobile money is still at an early stage for Safaricom Ethiopia. The opportunity extends beyond getting people to open a wallet: payments need to work easily between customers, merchants, banks and different services.
Think of a small merchant serving customers who use different banks or wallets. A failed payment may mean a trip to withdraw cash – or a sale that never happens.
Open-loop payments allow a merchant to accept payment across participating banks and wallets. Less cash handling and clearer transaction records can help a business trade more confidently.
Work on interoperability across banks, wallets and networks, and M-PESA Lehulum’s telco-agnostic design, aim to make those connections easier. The ambition is to give people more ways to participate in the economy, with fewer obstacles between wanting to trade and completing a transaction.
A future we can help build
From ancient landmarks and spectacular landscapes to living traditions, Ethiopia’s rich history and diverse cultures tell stories passed down through generations, still unfolding today.
Over four years of operations, community investment has reached 684 million Ethiopian birr (about $4.2 million), including shareholder contributions. The Safaricom Ethiopia Foundation will extend that contribution through digital inclusion, device financing, health, education and economic empowerment, with particular attention given to women, youth and underserved communities.
The next phase supports Ethiopia’s national Digital Ethiopia 2030 ambitions, with opportunities in financial services, enterprise digitalisation and wider digital inclusion. For all of us across Vodacom Group, it also gives our own Vision 2030 a tangible expression: local teams building services around local possibilities.
Wim’s invitation to us is to share our expertise generously, listen carefully and develop solutions alongside our Ethiopian team. What works here could offer lessons across the continent.
In Ethiopia, the team is already looking towards its next 15 million customers. Reaching them will demand the same curiosity that shaped those first connections in Dire Dawa.
Ethiopia has entered 2019 with fresh flowers and new beginnings. Safaricom is helping to turn that sense of possibility into connections people can use today, and a future they can help shape.
