Safaricom PLC (SCOM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the financial results announcement for Safaricom PLC for the full year 2021, 2022. On behalf of our Board of Directors, the management team, and the staff of Safaricom PLC, we thank you very much for joining us virtually for this event. My name is Zuri, Safaricom's virtual assistant. I am available 24/7 to serve you on WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and the Safaricom website to enhance your Safaricom experience and ensure you're always connected. Thanks to technology, which is the foundation of our business. I will be the moderator of today's full year results announcement. I am glad we can virtually connect and engage this morning. We will start with remarks by Michael Joseph, the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Safaricom PLC. Safaricom PLC Chief Executive Officer, Peter Ndegwa will speak through the strategy, highlights for the year, regional expansion updates and guidance for financial year 2023. The Chief Finance Officer, Dilip Pal, will take us through the financial performance and results for the period under review. Should you like to keep your social media followers updated, our hashtag #safaricomfyresults. In staying committed to our promise of diversity and inclusion, our sign language interpreter will be [ David Agondoa ]. It is now my pleasure to invite the Safaricom PLC Board Chairman, Mr. Michael Joseph, to make his remarks.

Thank you, Zuri. Fellow shareholders, representatives of the investor community, the Board, management and staff of Safaricom PLC, members of the media and the online community, good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning to announce our full year financial results. Since its inception 2 decades ago, Safaricom has been a successful business due to our firm commitment to leading with a purpose. Our purpose of transforming lives has guided our decision-making over the years. It has enabled us to deliver an inclusive business with relevant products and services that improve lives. Purpose has been our guiding light, creating value to the country in the process, supporting over 1 million jobs annually across the country according to our most recent sustainability report. This has seen us uplift communities and become a more accountable business both to our investors and shareholders and to society. As a Board, we will continue to uphold and guide the management towards living true to our commitment of being a sustainable business. The Board is encouraged by the business resilience and recovery trajectory marked by a return to nearly pre-COVID-19 levels. 2 years into Safaricom's new strategy, the Board continues to support the management and the business plans recording strong achievements in this financial year. As Peter will attest, these achievements are due to placing our customers at the heart of our business and our business priorities and our firm commitment to our purpose. Our commitment is to support Kenya's and our stakeholders, ensuring inclusive communities, also a sustainable planet and future. The Safaricom and M-PESA Foundations continue to drive our social investment and philanthropic activities. In the period under review, the M-PESA Foundation in partnership with Kwale County and the Kenya Red Cross, installed a solar-powered water pump at Nyalani dam originally funded by the M-PESA Foundation that will see over 22,000 residents of the county access clean and safe water in their homes. The water pump will also supply water for irrigation to over 105 acres of farm land in the country, thus directly boosting food production. This is one of our long-term disaster risk reduction initiatives, which began with Nyalani Dam's rehabilitation in 2014 at a cost of over KES 230 million to ensure food security, health and sanitation to the county. In our continued commitment to create shared value, the M-PESA Foundation partnered with Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital to launch Daktari Smart. This telemedicine program will link and provide specialized medical treatment to over 32,000 children in 6 hard-to-reach counties such as Lamu, Baringo, Samburu and Homabay counties over 3 years. The project aims to improve access and convenience to health care services in rural and underserved areas where previously lack of access to specialists and diagnostic equipment limited the ability to provide high-quality medical services. We're also currently part of the Pamoja Tuungane campaign launched this month rallying Kenyans to redeem or donate their Bonga points or cash to support children, families and communities affected by the prolonged drought in the country. Safaricom and the M-PESA Foundation have committed over KES 100 million worth of food stuffs to the campaign, which will be distributed to over 23 hardest hit counties, starting with Marsabit County. The Board will continue to work and support the management to deliver value and ensure Safaricom stands for our customers, our staff and our community. The past year was one with far-reaching changes and extraordinary circumstances given the recovery from the pandemic and subsequent recovery in the economy. As a Board, we actively monitor business risk from the geopolitical, macroeconomic and developments, industry concerns and reputational risks. New directed by the regulators in modifying mobile termination rate increases the GSM excise duty and focus on customer registration provided some challenges in 2021, 2022. The management has the Board's full support as it engages with our regulators to ensure alignment in legislation, taxation and interpretation of the laws. Kenya is now at the height of electioneering period with campaigns for the general election planned for August 9 hotting up. The elections normally present political risks that directly impact the business from the operations and infrastructure fronts. However, despite these headwinds, we are noting GDP growth surpassing pre-COVID-19 levels. I am pleased with the upward recovery as we unlock opportunities, especially for the micro and small business enterprises. As I hand over now to Peter to talk more about our performance for the financial year 2021, 2022. I invite you to watch a short video which is just one example of how we work together with various stakeholders to bring real change to our communities. Thank you [Presentation]

Thank you, Michael. Fellow shareholders, representatives of the investor community, the Board, management and staff of Safaricom PLC, members of the media and the online community, good morning. Thank you all for joining us this morning. As Zuri, our moderator, has said, we are glad we can engage with you virtually today. Let me start by talking about the soul of our business. We are a sustainable and innovative organization because of our purpose, which is transforming lives. Our purpose combined with our use of technology and our innovative spirit has enabled us to develop products that solve customer issues and societal challenges. Underpinning this is the integration of 9 of the 17 UN sustainable development goals, which has helped us create meaningful impact on the communities we serve. Whether it is creating digital societies through our network coverage across the country or by providing device financing platforms such as Lipa Mdogo Mdogo that ensures we leave no one behind or the 1 million trees planted as part of our focus on becoming a net 0 emitting company by 2050. As Michael has mentioned, we continue to connect with our communities in 2 ways; through our brand sponsorships and in our community social investment via our 2 foundations. The results of these efforts are reflected in the numbers you're about to see today. Our financial year of strong performance with significant commercial momentum. Ladies and gentlemen, the Board approved the new strategy in 2020. And I'm happy with what we have achieved in the first year of execution. We've delivered a customer-obsessed digital-fast organization. However, and most importantly, we've laid the foundations for future-fit organization with great progress in all the business areas. We've done a lot of work to earn the trust of our customers, including simplified customer journeys, especially in mobile data, thus creating more transparency on usage. As a result, we've registered significant growth in our customer KPIs and witnessed a positive trajectory on our key commercial KPIs. Our journey towards our vision is firmly on course. The organization has now transitioned fully to agile ways of working, establishing a customer-obsessed technology-driven culture. In building the tech organization for the future, we have developed the capacity for in-house technology experts. Key milestones in our journey include the enhancement of automation and digitization across the business, evolving M-PESA into a 2-sided digital platforms, serving both businesses and consumers and investing in the use of big data and analytics to build more intuitive products. We've delivered a strong performance for this year. These results reflect our firm commitment to our customer, our unrelenting support to the society and our continuous investment in innovation and network development. Looking at our connectivity business, we stayed the cost in bridging the digital divide through our investment strategy to strengthen our network. For example, we built 567 new base stations in the period that I review, ensuring that we have 4G coverage across the country. In addition, we laid an additional 800 kilometers of fiber cable and an equivalent to the distance in kilometers from Nairobi to Moyale town. However, infrastructure alone will not help close the digital gap. As such, we continued with our push to put as many 4G devices in the hands of as many customers as possible. Of the new devices into our network this year, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo accounted for about 24% of the devices. The new customers have registered an uplift in data usage by over 275%. In additional average revenue per user has grown by over 175% of this segment of customers. While still off a low base, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo has been instrumental in the penetration and the growth of our mobile data business. With over 12 million feature phones in our network, the mobile data story is one of untapped opportunity and a growth area for us. On financial services, we set a reached 15 years of M-PESA and hit 30 million active customer mark in Kenya. A significant sign of M-PESA progress was the 63.4% growth of Lipa na M-PESA merchants to just below 500,000 customers. In addition, we have developed specific business solutions for MSMEs such as Pochi La Biashara and the M-PESA business app. Under Pochi La Biashara, we've grown our network to over 3 million businesses. With the M-PESA business app over 150,000 businesses can now get better visibility of their business operations by viewing their collections and payments, accessing statements and transacting directly from the business deal amongst other services. We are proud that M-PESA is now accessible across the country as a universal payment network are following merchant interoperability. Whilst we made significant progress on execution in Kenya, we are also making headway in terms of regional expansion with the operationalization of M-PESA Africa and Ethiopia. I'll speak in detail about this regional expansion to Ethiopia shortly. Our focus on strategy execution and on the customer obsession is well-evident through some intuitive and innovative new products that directly address specific customer pain points. Through Nyoosha Shilingi, our mobile data new pricing plan, we are now giving more value to our customers at no extra cost. In partnership with Gulf African Bank, we launched Halal Pesa, the first Sharia-compliant based digital financing product powered by M-PESA. With support from our regional regulators and partners, we are working together to deliver innovative products in a new year such as Visa virtual card M-PESA global pay to support international online payments. And subject to regulatory approvals, we plan to soon launch an M-PESA Junior product for our children who may have access to mobile phones. Our focus on customers calls on us to invest heavily in our network, develop tailor-made products and improve our service offerings. It is an honor that various global organizations and industries recognized a razor-sharp focus on our customers through multiple awards. This multi-industry recognition is a testament to the hard work and commitment of the business, the employees, their partners and the believe our customers and our communities have in our work. I would now like to share an update on our regional expansion into Ethiopia. But before I do that, let us watch this video that talks more about Ethiopia. [Presentation] As you'll know, Ethiopia has experienced some unforeseen and unprecedented circumstances since our license award. We are encouraged though by the positive outlook to Ethiopia security and political situation and the return to normal economic activity in most of the areas in the country. We are, however, mindful of the ForEx volatility and the high inflation. Since we were granted the telecommunication license in July 2021, we've made good progress with the support of the government of Ethiopia and the Ethiopia Communications Authority, the ECA. This includes incorporating the company, securing approval for tower development, building 2 data centers, making our first test call, sending our first test SMS and completing our first data session. We've also recruited a strong team of over 300 staff, of which 55% is local talent with plans on reaching 1,000 in the next financial year. On our sales and distribution channel front, we have onboarded 29 distributors, secured 4 shops locations and set up our first outsourced call center in Addis. It has indeed been a period of many firsts for our Ethiopia operation. After a period of negotiation with Ethio Tel and with the support of the regulator, the ECA, we are making progress in terms of establishing a mutually beneficial partnership in interconnection, transmission capacity, tower and tower sharing. We look forward to a successful conclusion of this negotiation to allow us to launch and offer Ethiopians the benefit of digital connectivity. We are in consultation with the government of Ethiopia on the requirements needed to operationalize our mobile money business, and we will inform investors when these discussions and consultations are complete. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, a lot of work is currently going on in Ethiopia with the aim of a full rollout of the network and commercial launch within calendar year 2022. We are proud to be investing in Ethiopia, and we are grateful to our partners for their support accorded to us by the government of Ethiopia and by the ECA in the initial preparation for commercial launch. Let me now briefly talk about our financial year 2022 guidance. We are proud of our strong financial performance that reflects our focus on solving customer issues and societal challenges. Excluding Ethiopia, our earnings before interest and tax EBIT was KES 114.3 billion against the guidance of KES 107 billion to KES 110 billion. In terms of capital expenditure, which we call CapEx, we've achieved KES 39.3 billion against the guidance of KES 40 billion to KES 43 billion. Looking at the performance at a group level, including Ethiopia, we've performed well against expectations, where we achieved KES 109 billion against KES 97 billion to KES 100 billion guidance. In terms of CapEx, we've achieved KES 4l9.8 billion against KES 70 billion to KES 73 billion guidance. At this point, I will now welcome Dilip Pal, our CFO, to take us through the numbers in more detail.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, all, and [Foreign Language]. It gives me great pleasure this morning to take you through our financial performance for the year ended 31st March, 2022. Before I start, I would like to inform you that the result materials will be available on our website shortly. Let me take you through the retail numbers. Some key highlights of our performance. As Peter mentioned, this is the year we ventured into our first cross-border investment, which is Ethiopia. The numbers in this presentation are group numbers, consolidated with Ethiopia performance unless otherwise stated. We recorded an overall service revenue number of KES 281 billion, a 12.3% growth from prior year, driven by growth in M-PESA, mobile data and fixed revenue. I will be speaking about this in a lot more detail in subsequent slides. EBIT at KES 109 billion is 13.5% growth, driven by the double-digit growth in revenue. As Peter mentioned, we suppressed the guidance shared at a half year due to a better performance in the second half of the year. CapEx spend in the year was KES 50 billion, a 42% growth from last year due to investment in our Ethiopia operations. Excluding Ethiopia, Safaricom Kenya CapEx grew by 12.5%, closing at KES 39 billion. Customer growth slowed down in the period due to the ongoing implementation of changes in subscriber registration process. Despite this, our 1-month active customers grew by 4.3% year-over-year to 32.81 million. Just to help us appreciate the key drivers of our service revenue from a customer versus ARPU view. We are happy to note that both contributed positively to the growth. The growth in our 1-month active customers has contributed 6.8% of the growth in service revenue. On the other hand, our customer ARPU, which grew by 5.1% contributed 5.5% of the service revenue growth. The graph on the right helps you appreciate our evolution on the 1-month customers in the last 4 years. A good story, which lives up to our purpose of transforming lives, having grown our customer base by 25% in the last 4 years. Looking at service revenue drivers from the perspective of the different product lines, we have recorded double-digit growth across most revenue lines. The chart on the left demonstrates that the growth was mainly attributed to growth in M-PESA revenue, mobile data and fixed revenue, as I mentioned before. M-PESA revenue grew 30.3% year-over-year, supported by return to charging and improved business activity, as mentioned earlier. Mobile data grew by 8.1%, driven by increased usage evidenced by a 26.5% year-over-year increase in the number of customers using more than 1 gigabyte of data. Fixed enterprise and fiber-to-home revenue grew 16.9% and 20.6% year-over-year, respectively, driven by mostly growth in customers. We shall delve into more details on this in subsequent slides. Moving across charts on the top right of the slide, you get to appreciate our service revenue contribution profile. M-PESA now accounts for 38.3% of our service revenue, up from 33% last year. The chart on the bottom right shows the continued recovery in service revenue post the pandemic. We are happy to report that we have recorded revenues higher than the pre-COVID period, showing a strong recovery in performance. M-PESA has transitioned into a universal payments ecosystem and is our leading revenue contributor. We have established a business that enables millions of business and individuals to connect and grow while contributing significantly to economic development. M-PESA is a key player in the payment ecosystem, driving financial inclusion metrics for our country. As shown on the chart on the left, the 30.3% growth in M-PESA revenue is attributable to personal payments, which include transfers and withdrawals revenue, which grew by 30.3% year-over-year driven by improved business environment and customer growth. Business payments, which Lipa na M-PESA, C2B, B2C and B2B, a growth of 31.2% attributable to increased usage. Financial services, on the other hand, grew by 17.8% year-over-year driven by Fuliza, our M-PESA overdraft facility. And lastly, global payments, which continued to perform strongly, growing 22.9% year-over-year, enabled by growth in remittances. The charts on the right clearly demonstrate the strides we are making in the growth of our financial services, whose contribution has grown by 580 basis points over the last 4 years. Our strategic priority to be a financial services provider is bearing fruit. Fintech solutions continue to be a key pillar in scaling M-PESA and driving stickiness in the ecosystem. Still on M-PESA and this time from the perspective of values and transaction. The total value of M-PESA transactions grew 34% year-over-year to KES 29.5 trillion, whilst total volumes grew 34.9% year-over-year to KES 15.8 billion. The graphs on the right demonstrate growth trajectories across our various transaction types, affirming our impact in the payment ecosystem as we facilitate digital lifestyles. The growth momentum has been sustained post return to charging. Chargeable transactions per 1-month active customers grew 16.6% year-over-year to 20.3 transactions, up from 17.4 transactions in a similar period last year. M-PESA wallet to bank and bank to M-PESA wallet transactions are still 0 rated and make up 18.9% of the total M-PESA transactions. To enhance customer experience and meet the ever-evolving needs of our digital customers, we launched the M-PESA super app last year, as mentioned earlier. This super app have mini-apps functionalities to power digital consumer lifestyles and empower businesses. This have become a focal point in our strategy as we aim to digitize the payments platforms and leverage on technological innovation. This will enhance access to financial services for consumers and enterprise customers, what we like to call the 2-sided ecosystem. The consumer super app as per the chart on the left has recorded over 5.3 million downloads with 1 million active customers, generated KES 3.1 billion in M-PESA revenue supported over 204 million transactions with a value of over KES 621 billion. And includes over 22 active mini-apps through our third-party partnerships and integrations, which we are committed to increase as we target to make this a one-stop shop experience for our customers. We also undertook cohort analysis of 700,000 active customers to assess their before and after usage on the adoption of the consumer app. We have seen a 10% uplift to ARPU for these customers, 15% growth in average days of using M-PESA in a month and a 23% growth in average transactions per customer per month. This is a remarkable shift in how our consumers are powering digital lifestyles. The business super app, on the other hand, has also recorded some great traction. Over 460,000 downloads with over 76,000 businesses signed up on the app and KES 143 billion in value transacted via the app. A similar analysis was done for our business customers, a cohort of 264 merchants to also assess their before and after usage on adoption of the business app. We have seen transactions grow by 57% per merchant, values grew by 52%, and the revenue growth per merchant went up by 75%. This demonstrates the value added to the merchants in empowering their businesses. Just to note, more details on M-PESA performance can be found in the results booklet, which will be on our website shortly. Let me now move on to mobile data. Mobile data revenue grew 8.1% year-over-year, weighed down by price rationalization and absorb tax from increased excise duty from August 2021. There was, however, an increased momentum in the second half of the year, recording a 10% growth attributable to our CVM initiatives driving personalized offers to our customers. Usage per chargeable data subscribers grew 60.5% year-over-year to close at 2.3 gigabytes in the period. This was attributed to CVM initiatives that were aimed at unlocking latent potential in data usage for example, the launch of our Internet campaign launched in November 2021. Data ARPU grew by 10.4%, driven by growth in customers using more than 1 gigabyte per month. Rate per megabits declined 31.2% year-over-year, impacted by price rationalization. The graphs on the right side show that the various overall 1-month active customers have grown 4.3% year-over-year to close at 32.8 billion. The 1-month active bundle customers grew faster at 5.3% year-over-year to close at 17.6 million. Similarly, you will also note that data customers consuming over 1 GB and active 4G devices grew at a much faster pace of 26.5% year-over-year and 29.3% year-over-year, respectively. Thus, highlighting the opportunity to drive usage. We continue to support customers to purchase 4G-enabled devices through our affordable Lipa Mdogo Mdogo offering, which has enabled over 800,000 customers to enjoy more features at their convenience. Ladies and gentlemen, moving on the fixed service, we are delighted with the strong acceleration of our fixed business because of growth in customers. The fixed revenue grew by 18.3% year-over-year, driven by growth in all key drivers, as shown by the graph on the left. The top right graph shows that fiber-to-home closing customers have grown by 20.8% to close at 156,000, up from 137,000 in a similar period last year. The graph below, it gives highlights of the fixed enterprise business. The customers have grown by 24.4% to close at 48,000 up from 39,000 last year. There is still a lot of untapped opportunity, and we are exploring several initiatives to scale in this area, including IoT and ICT. As Peter mentioned, one of our key transformative pillars is to accelerate new growth areas. In the year just concluded, we have seen impressive growth trajectory, although on a small base. DigiFarm generated revenue of KES 400 million, which more than doubled compared to previous year, driven by increase in sales. Our IoT business, which majorly serves the enterprise clients, also grew their revenue by 64.5% driven by new connections, which grew 67% to close at 1.2 million. Content revenue, on the other hand, also recorded KES 500 million in revenues from video streaming services after launch of base platform, gaming subscriptions and educational content. Our ICT, which is mainly focused on cloud and hosting services revenue also generated revenues to the tune of KES 400 million and continues to be an area of growth with great potential. We are committed to continue offering purpose-fit solutions to the market as we serve our SME and MSME segments of the economy. Safaricom Kenya net income grew at 12.1%, excluding financing costs related to Ethiopia, supported by growth in EBIT. This was partly weighed down by higher taxes after corporate tax rates reverted to 30% compared to 25% last year. During the year, the bridge facility that we have taken of USD 400 million was converted into a 5-year long-term facility of USD 120 million and KES 31.1 billion, equivalent to USD 280 million 7-year facility with 2 years' moratorium on principal repayment through a syndication process. Our total borrowings increased to KES 65 billion to fund Ethiopia expansion. This has resulted in initially KES 4.7 billion incremental financing costs. On a consolidated basis, including Ethiopia operations, our net income grows by 1.4% and is within our expectations. Looking at the overall shape of the income statement for the group and company, Safaricom Kenya recorded double-digit growth in revenue and resulting 14.4% growth in profit before tax. Our operating costs grew 8.8% to KES 50 billion, driven by higher energy costs and employee-related costs. Safaricom Ethiopia majorly incurred operating costs being the first year of establishing Ethiopia operations before the commercial launch. This cost majorly covered staff-related expenses and publicity. This has resulted in a net loss after tax of KES 2.7 billion for our Ethiopia operations. We'd like to reiterate that our medium-term guidance framework for Ethiopia is unchanged and highlights the opportunity we see. Our 5-year CapEx investment projection stands at USD 1.5 billion to USD 2 billion. Our sites rollout is targeted at approximately 1,000 sites by the time we launch with the projection to attain 10,000 to 12,000 sites in the next 10 years. We target to breakeven by year 4 at EBITDA level with certain key dependencies, including network expansion and mobile money product launch. Our funding on the other hand, is on course, having spent USD 540 million in the reported period. Our major source of funding include equity, vendor financing and local short-term facilities. We continue to explore other funding revenues as guided by business decisions and market conditions. As key partners of the consortium, we are committed to ensure that our Ethiopia business is well-resourced to carry out its operations. On CapEx, we continue with our sustained investment in our network and systems to support capacity upgrade and user experience. Our group capital additions for the period stood at KES 50 billion, with the Ethiopia operations portion KES 10.4 billion. We have revamped our approach in capital allocation in line with our strategic pillar on accelerating new growth areas. This will help us focus on fueling more innovations and solutions as we transform into a purpose-led technology company. Lastly, in line with our partners of transforming lives, we are committed to continue creating value for our shareholders and investors. The dividend yield at 4.5% takes us back to pre-COVID levels. Our earnings per share is on an upward trajectory, recording the highest earnings per share at KES 1.92 per share when adjusted for the impact of Ethiopia operations. During the year, the Board approved payment of an interim dividend of KES 0.64 per ordinary share, amounting to initially KES 25.64 billion. The Board has resolved to recommend to the shareholders at the forthcoming AGM, a final dividend of KES 0.75 per ordinary share. This is cumulatively at KES 1.39 per share or KES 56 billion for the full year. And this is in line with our dividend policy, and we remain committed to paying dividends that are commensurate with our performance. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time. Just to mention again that the results materials will be available on our website shortly. Let me now hand you back to Peter for FY '23 guidance and concluding remarks.

Thank you, Dilip. Ladies and gentlemen. This is a strong performance, and we are very proud of what we have been able to deliver. In the financial year 2022, '23, our focus will be on developing a scalable business in new growth areas in Kenya and beyond. We will combine the power of technology and innovation to grow beyond connectivity and our payment businesses. We will do this by leveraging mergers and acquisition, licenses and partnerships to unlock growth and shape our investment profile. We'll scale fixed solutions, both fiber-to-home and fiber-to-business services for consumer and business. We'll leverage both the fiber and 5G technology with fixed home wireless as our first major use case. And subject to the right partnership and regulatory approval, we also aim to expand our financial services offerings to cover verticals such as insurance, wealth, e-commerce for consumer and SME. We will still select digital platforms, particularly in agritech, digital health as well as establish the right operating model to partnerships and to scale IoT and ICT. We will grow digital services such as content, education, advertising to drive data stickiness and utilization. As a business, we'll proactively allocate resource and investment to scale new growth areas, opportunities, not just in Kenya but also beyond. Let me now talk briefly about our financial year F '23 guidance. Our financial year '23 guidance is based on the prevailing macroeconomic and regulatory conditions. We remain cognizant of the increasing geopolitical risks from a Russia-Ukraine conflict, which may impact global trade. The current ongoing mobile termination rates, which we call MTR, tribunal hearings, may also have an impact on our business. Based on this information, Safaricom PLC's business in Kenya, excluding Ethiopia, for earnings before interest and tax, our guidance is KES 120 billion to KES 123 billion, while our CapEx is at KES 40 billion to KES 43 billion. For our guidance at Safaricom PLC group, including Ethiopia, our earning before interest and tax guidance is KES 87 billion to KES 93 billion with CapEx at KES 100 billion to KES 108 billion. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank the Board for their support accorded in the last financial year. I look forward to continued support as we scale the new heights to achieve even more value for all our stakeholders. I sincerely thank my colleagues at ExCo for their hard work and their dedication to the largest Safaricom team for your commitment in the past financial year. Thank you for making Safaricom the best place to work. You have embodied our purpose of transforming lives. As I conclude, I'll recap on our mission for financial year 2023, which is to accelerate new growth areas, delivering superior customer experience in order to be a purpose-led technology company by 2025. To all our stakeholders, I thank you for your confidence in us. [Foreign Language]. And now back to you, Zuri.

Thank you, Michael, Peter and Dilip. Ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the end of our full year results announcement. For the members of the media and bloggers present today, you will have an opportunity to ask your questions at a separate virtual press conference, which will take place shortly. [Operator Instructions] Once again, we appreciate you for taking the time to join us. On behalf of the entire Safaricom family [Foreign Language]. Have a good day, stay safe and let's stay connected.