Safaricom PLC ($SCOM)

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone joining us for this particular call, where we'll get to discuss our results for full year 2026. And indeed, we are really glad that you could make time to join into this conversation. My name is Caroline Wambugu. I serve as the Head of Financial Planning Analysis and Investor Relations here at Safaricom, and I'll be moderating the session. We take it that you did manage to at least get to listen to the conversation this morning when we released our results, whether from a live session or a post recording. But having said that, we did confirm that the materials have been loaded on to our website, which we trust that you've been able to download and interact more with them. And so this particular session is to give you that opportunity to field your questions to the leadership so that we can be able to address as many questions as possible. And for that reason, we have a very short update from our Group CEO, Dr. Peter Ndegwa, followed by some remarks as well from our Group Chief Financial and Innovation Officer, Dilip Pal, who will speak briefly about our results that we announced earlier this morning and then therefore, pave way for a longer session to get to field your questions. But before we start, allow me to just request us to go through a bit of housekeeping rules. First and foremost, please join with your full names for ease of identification. And when you post your question just ensure that you have fully identified yourself and the organization for which you work for just to make the conversations easier. At the same time, we want to encourage you to post your questions through the Q&A tab and we'll be able to read them on your behalf for the leadership to be able to respond to that. We also do have a live transcript that has been made available. We try to really keep to our promise on diversity and inclusion. So for the comfort of anyone with hearing difficulties, please access this by clicking the tab on the bottom of your Zoom application and you'll be able to follow through with the conversations in a more comfortable manner. But should you require any other form of assistance that may not be directly related to the subject matter of the call, you could write to us on the chat platform and the Investor Relations and support team will be on hand to support you. So with that, allow me to invite and indeed welcome our Group CEO, Peter Ndegwa, to please make his remarks. Peter, over to you.

Thank you. Thank you, Caroline. Please confirm that you can hear me.

Okay. Yes, we can hear you. You may proceed.

So good morning and also good afternoon and evening, depending on where you are calling from. Caroline has set out the context. So I won't kind of go through the intro, but there's enough of the management that is here today. So if you have any questions, we can always deal with it. So I will just very briefly speak about the results we announced today. So this morning, as Caroline has said, we announced the results -- we are very pleased with those results in the context of the shape of growth that we expected, the shape of the P&L that we are delivering, the health of the business that we are seeing in both Kenya and Ethiopia and the progress, in particular, that we have made in Ethiopia in terms of resolving some of the more external issues that affect the business and gives us a pathway to sustainability in the future. But in a summary, I wanted to just take you through three things. One is just highlights or just summary of our read of where the economies are and macroeconomic environment and how that influences and shapes our business. The second in summary, just talk about the results themselves and then deal with any other issues that I may feel is appropriate at this stage. So from a macroeconomic perspective, starting with Kenya, very stable parameters across inflation, GDP growth, interest rates reducing, stable currency. So all the macro parameters look very much under control. However, we know that the country still faces fiscal and we are going into a finance period and also the whole impact and the unknown impact on the Middle East war. So we feel that, that stability is helpful, but we need to be very watchful of the impact of the fiscal pressure the government faces, but also the inflationary or impact on customers as far as the Middle East is concerned. So we believe that customers, therefore, will continue to be under pressure, and we saw that in the financial year '26 from a disposable income perspective. And then therefore, we'll have to continue to offer more value. So segmentation is important and more value is important. The good news, though, from a regulatory perspective, we've now confirmed and secured our 25-year license, operating license. I know some of you will have asked in the past because it was extended to '26, what happens after that. So now this has been confirmed, which is great news, provides a level of predictability that is good for the industry, not just for Safaricom, but for the industry. But from a regulatory perspective, we know that there is still residual issues that we need to deal with, especially on the financial services side, whether that's a switch on the -- also on the GSM side, the nonterrestrial regulatory framework is still not finalized in terms of satellite. So Kenya is stable, but prone to risk and also we are coming next year to an election year. On Ethiopia, against stable macros, high GDP growth inflation stabilized. But of course, all these things is subject to what happens with the impact on the war in the Middle East. The second is Ethiopia also has equally fiscal challenges that they need to deal with probably more externally dealt with through the whole program that they have. And I'm sure we'll be able to update that at some point during the call. And then, of course, from a security perspective, elections are coming in about a month. So we believe that that's looking stable. But from a security perspective, we continue to watch the space. From a regulatory perspective, we believe that or we feel that there has been material progress, especially on the GSM side. You know we have been at the issue of driving a more sustainable business. So the regulator finally made the decision to allow the industry or to compare the industry to make sure that we sell above cost, but also we have clear infrastructure sharing guidelines, which have now been announced. So -- and we have benefited from that from a pricing standpoint. We've decided to do it on a gradual basis rather than wait until the end. So when you look at the results, you need to take them in the context of those two macroeconomic parameters. But summarizing the results, very pleased with the Kenya results, double-digit growth across the board, very good health of the business, balanced growth, which is also quite important and benefiting -- continue to be the powerhouse of the group. In Ethiopia, the benefit in H2 of pricing will show up or has shown up in positive results for Ethiopia. We have halved the loss in Ethiopia, which also, of course, has benefited the group. So at a group level, we are very pleased with the profile of growth, the overall health of the business. But more importantly, that we are now clearer, I should say, not necessarily clear, but clearer about the path to sustainability from a regulatory perspective in Ethiopia. So I will leave it there, and I'll hand over to you -- over to you Dilip.

Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Caroline, confirm, you can hear me well.

Yes, we can hear you, Dilip. You may proceed.

So thank you, Peter. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all participants. As always, we are very pleased to engage with you following the release of our FY '26 results. And for those who have not yet reviewed our earnings materials, I encourage you to do so for a deeper understanding. We know several of you also joined in the morning release announcement, but let me share some quick highlights for the benefit of those that may not have had a chance. So overall, Safaricom Group has delivered a very strong set of results with solid growth across our core business in Kenya and encouraging progress in Ethiopia. I'll just talk about a few areas to allow you to ask questions. Starting with Kenya, customer base continues to expand, reaching nearly 58 million on a 90-day basis with close to 40 million active on a 30-day basis. This reflects the trust and loyalty we have built over 25 years. M-PESA remains the engine of our business. Revenues grew 13.4% year-on-year, again, another double-digit growth delivery for M-PESA, now contributing 45.6% of the service revenue for Kenya. Within that payments revenue grew nearly 18% and both supported by consumer and business -- our merchant base more than doubled to 3.1 million with revenue up 36%. Credit customers doubled to KES 18 million and also our wealth products are now gaining scale with over KES 21 billion asset under management. The M-PESA app, I'm referring to the old M-PESA app are gaining -- have really gained traction last year with usage up sharply and also contributing more than 10% of M-PESA revenue. Connectivity business, which accounts for almost half of our base revenue also performed well. Mobile data grew 14.4% year-on-year, driven by wider adoption of 4G and 5G devices with average usage per customer rising nearly to 5G customer per month. Voice revenue recovered in the second half. You recall our discussion in the H1, we had a decline in voice revenue, but we also signed posted that H2, we expect it to be better. And actually, that has helped with the recovery, ending the year slightly in a positive note with about 1.3% growth. Fixed revenue also grew 12%, 12.2% with strong momentum in the consumer segment, which grew 19.5%. We maintain our cost discipline. Direct costs were broadly flat and operating costs rose mainly due to ForEx and the advertising and promotion expenses relating to our celebration of Safaricom at 25 and also M-PESA at 18, leading to a very strong contribution margin of 75% and OpEx intensity stable at 18%, of course, supporting a healthy bottom line. Turning to now to Ethiopia. We are seeing rapid scale. Active customers reached 13.6 million on a 90-day basis with mobile data and voice usage growing sharply. Service revenue more than doubled in last financial year with mobile data contributing 2/3 of the total. Voice revenue also more than doubled, now accounting for 21% of service revenue. Importantly, on financial metrics, losses are now narrowing. EBITDA losses reduced significantly in the second half and start-up losses declining by over 40%. The pathway to breakeven is becoming clearer, and we are confident in Ethiopia's long-term potential. At group level, the numbers are very strong. Service revenue grew 11% EBITDA rose 35%. Net income, excluding minority, grew 67%, excluding impact of IAS 29. Operating free cash flow was up over nearly 40%, supported by lower CapEx -- overall group CapEx and stronger earnings. Debt levels remained stable with a healthy long-term profile and reduced interest costs. In summary, Kenya delivered record results across all key metrics, while Ethiopia showed strong customer growth and reduced losses. You have seen that Board has also recommended a dividend -- the full year dividend of KES 2 per share, which, of course, KES 0.85 was paid interim and the balance KES 1.15 per share would be paid after the -- it's approved in the Annual General Meeting. This is the highest dividend that we have ever paid. So together with all of this performance and our record dividend payout, this performance truly underpin our Vision 2030 strategy and FY '26 was the first year of that strategy and give us confidence as we move into FY '27 with solid momentum. So that's all I wanted to say, and thank you very much. Back to you, Caroline, for Q&A.

Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, analysts and investors, what I'll do, I have seen lots and lots of questions come through. So I'll try and see them so that we get maximum benefit from this call in the short time that we have together. So I see a question from Mike, Avior and Rohit of Citi with respect to the Ethiopia guidance. So allow me to combine those two. So Dilip, I'll request that you respond to this question. And the question in a nutshell is, can we provide more color on the Ethiopian guidance? Particularly the key underlying assumptions. And for example, what level of subscriber additions are we targeting for FY '27? What FX assumptions are embedded? I know, Rohit, you're asking too much of the detail. But really what Rohit is positioning, which is also the question coming from Mike is given that depreciation and amortization is approximately KES 22 billion in FY '26 and guided that FY '27 EBIT losses will be in the region of KES 12 billion to KES 15 billion, this would imply a positive FY '27 EBITDA of about 7 billion to 10 billion, assuming depreciation remains broadly unchanged. So does that imply that the business is expected to exit FY '27 with positive EBITDA and not just breakeven during the year. So I think Dilip is just some color around the Ethiopia guidance in terms of some of the considerations. But having said that, I think, Rohit, just to help you and for the benefit of the rest on the call, if you could go to Page 37 of the results booklet, it gives you the numbers with and without IAS 29. Remember, we guide without IAS 29. The numbers exclude IAS 29 adjustment. So the KES 22 billion you're actually quoting for D&A is KES 15 billion, excluding IAS 29. And remember, that's where most of the unwinding is happening. So please note that the best number to use is the numbers excluding IAS 29. Having said that, Dilip, if you could please respond.

I think maybe I'll start with the one on the EBITDA. I think it looks like you have done quite a bit of calculation. And of course, we don't guide on our EBITDA other than the fact that we have reconfirmed in today's the EBITDA breakeven in FY '27. Now EBITDA breakeven in FY '27, of course, means that it could turn into a positive side. I'm not able to confirm you on EBITDA because that's not what we guide for. But of course, you have seen the EBIT number. And the EBIT number, I think we spoke about the EBIT losses now coming down significantly. It's half of what losses that we reported for FY '26. And I think this is also coming from the fact that if you look at the EBITDA -- to look at your EBITDA question, the way to see is the FY '26 EBITDA split of FY -- the H1 and H2 for the KES 15 billion loss, KES 15 billion plus loss for FY '26, we had about KES 12 billion, KES 12.5 billion loss in H1, and that loss reduced to KES 2.7 billion in H2. So obviously, the trajectory is what gives us the confidence that -- and also the service revenue growth profile, you have seen that the revenue growth momentum is the best that we had in the entire year, which is also supported by the price revision that we took in December, January. And it's just a one quarter impact, although you can see the split of H1 and H2 revenue, H2 revenue trajectory is much better. But remember, there is only one quarter impact of the full price revision that is factored in FY -- that has actually come in FY '26. And as Peter was mentioning that the full impact of that will be visible in FY '27. So without getting too details into it, I think, yes, we reconfirmed our EBITDA breakeven for Q-o-Q in FY '27. Now on customers and on currency, Rohit, to your question, I think we have -- on the currency, it's not necessarily something that we -- typically, we do a few scenarios, what has been the currency scenario in the past and how it can play out. But of course, without -- we don't have a full view or full understanding about how the Middle East war will play out. I mean that -- I mean, by the way, that applies both for Kenya and Ethiopia. For Ethiopia, I think there is that part of -- not necessarily so much on the fuel cost because we don't have reliance of diesel a lot on Ethiopia. So it's mostly what happens because of the fuel cost led inflation, which could change the trajectory. But at this point in time, we don't have necessarily have a full visibility or full assessment of how this will shape up. But beyond that, I think on the currency, you have seen that throughout the year, H2 ETB to dollars remain mostly stable. I think probably the slowest decline of currency that we have seen. The euro to ETB, although was a different story, but that was not specific to only Ethiopia that happened in pretty much every country, including Kenya. So I think there are a few scenarios that we normally do when we build our guidance. And then we go ahead with what we think is the most likely scenarios. And that has also implication of currency and also remember the point Peter has raised that the price revision is a staggered price revision. It's still the impact of the full revision is still not seen because the full revision of price has not happened, you will see probably in the coming days, more price revision coming to place. And that is also part of the assumption. I think on customers, we had a very good momentum in FY '26, moving from 8.8 million to 13.6 million on a 90-day basis. And we have seen across voice, mobile data customer growth. So we -- of course, we remember our discussion around the medium-term outlook of the scale business, which is on customer about 15 million to 20 million and then base stations of sites around 4,000. So we are not far away from that. So obviously, on a scale business, that's what we believe that we will be coming closer to that in FY '27. So you can assume that the numbers would be broadly around that, both for sites as well as for customers. So Caroline, I hope I have answered all.

Yes, yes, you have, Dilip. It's given us some good flavor. And still speaking to guidance, Dilip, maybe you can also make mention on the CapEx. The question being, what is driving the lower CapEx outlook for Ethiopia? Are we increasing reliance on external or shared network infrastructure? And how should we think about the margin implications of this approach?

So in our past discussion, if you recall, again, I'm referring to our medium-term outlook. that had on the scale on customer that spoke about sites and that also spoke about EBITDA breakeven and the investment period. So what we have spoken about in the past that we are coming out of the peak investment period and then -- and getting closer to the scale business, that's what is coming in this year. So the reduction is very much part of the planned CapEx that we have planned for. So it doesn't mean that we are not going to invest in future. It just means that the way we plan for our business to scale with the level of CapEx that we wanted to put in, it is how it was planned for. And this does take care of -- we are not compromising on our ambition to reach to the scale business in terms of the number of sites. That's very much part of our plan. And that's how the number is. I think we did signpost in the past that the group CapEx, which actually increased significantly in the past is likely to come down. And we have seen in the last 3 years, every single year, overall group CapEx is coming down on the back of reduced CapEx from Ethiopia. Having said that, I think we'll always look for opportunities to see as any scale business look for opportunities to grow the business beyond the scale business, and that will also show up in some form or shape, but that's not necessarily part of our -- the original -- the way we defined our investment period. And so the CapEx guidance that you see is in line with what we have provided to you kind of an investment period and therefore, the CapEx investment that we have planned for. Caroline?

Yes. Peter, would you like to add something on that?

Yes. So Dilip has covered it pretty well. Probably the one dimension I wanted to add is to say that we -- in sizing how we face CapEx, we've also looked at ability to sweat the asset as we call it, which is we've invested a lot. We are everywhere in the country. Are we utilizing the asset base that we have in the way we want it utilized and also to secure the kind of margins we want into the future. And then the third thing, and we will be not happy, but we'll react to this is we also want to hold ourselves to account for delivering breakeven within the profile of CapEx or site size that we wanted. And then once we are in a good place and actually a lot of the regulatory issues have been confirmed, then it's easier to now have a path that allows us to accelerate but with much clearer cash flow implications and less kind of risks around it. So that's also one of the other dimensions. But we are not kind of denying the business CapEx with growth potential.

And now that you have the mic Peter, I request you to respond to questions around the M-PESA app. Generally, the query being around how long the M-PESA app disruption lasted and whether we expect to see any impact in our performance from that. Peter?

Yes. So I think my iPad was making sure that I don't answer the question. Probably it was going to call someone else to answer the question. But I'm very happy to answer the question. So when we announced results this morning, I said that we did not get the actual launch right. So the actual design of the one app is very strong. And the intention is to create a house of value that brings together Safaricom and M-PESA app into one kind of properly designed and with the same design principles that allow our customers not to come into the app because they are coming for GSM services or because they are coming for M-PESA services, but to come to a household value for Safaricom. So the philosophy is right. The design was okay. The way we launched it was not great, I have to say, because we caused an intended consequences. The first is we realized that there were lots of customers that had set the M-PESA app or rather the app, whether it's M-PESA or Safaricom for auto update. So therefore, they were upgraded to a new version. They were not aware of it. So I don't think the team understood that we would have as much kind of flow, and it was a large number of customers. And then the second for our [Technical Difficulty] and roaming customers, there was complications about authentication because one of the things we designed into the new app was to make sure much better security features in the back end and that required fresh authentication. And that's one of the reasons why -- and I saw a question on why we are asking customers to use Safaricom SIM. That's one of the reasons because what we realized is fraud starts were directing fraud depending on your level of vulnerability. So we wanted to secure that. And as a result of that, we got a lot of customer feedback. We set up a crisis team. And I have to say we have seen significant improvement in terms of functionality and experience. And we have been testing with customers every 2 days especially on the Android, we actually have made very good progress, and we are in very good territory. On iOS, there's still work to be done. And certainly on [indiscernible], work that has happened and is now beta testing on an app that we want targeted at that and a specified focused care, whether that is e-mail or otherwise, that will allow us to make sure that we channel the issues that nondomestic customers have. So my belief is that we will end up with much better UI/UX with much better experience for customers and with a much better app. Of course, there's legacy feeling from customers that we should have launched it better and that we have to continue to manage. But we apologize for that, and we continue to really, really stay close to this issue. And so I wanted to just leave it there, but say it's being handled -- it's improving, and we believe that it will make a big difference. In terms of revenue, remember that the reason why we are setting it up is so that it delivers the right experience. And these customers, we have not seen any major impact from a revenue perspective. But we don't want to focus on revenue at this stage. We want to focus on ensuring that we get intuitive, secure UI/UX and experience that we wanted everyone to have. So Caroline, I hand over back.

We now request that you respond to the next question, actually two questions from Tracy. Tracy of SBG Securities. And the questions are, so the first one is how is Safaricom Ethiopia positioned in pricing versus competition post the price increases? She's basically seeking to understand premium discount sort of variations in the voice and data pricing versus competition. And then you can also respond to her second question around population coverage, how the population coverage for Safaricom Ethiopia compares to competition? Wim, over to you.

Yes. So let me take it on the pricing. So on data, Safaricom has a slight premium, 10% to 15% overall on average. It also depends on some of the packages. -- especially on the big volume bundles, we are more expensive than competition. But blended on average of about 10% to 15% price premium. We think we can afford that because we are offering still the better user experience. So that premium comes also with much better speeds. On the voice, it's slightly different, especially on-net voice, we are discount versus competition. So -- which is logic because we are the data network primarily. That's how we enter the market. And now on voice, we are a bit discounted versus competition. But you've seen in our results that the voice revenue is actually growing disproportionately. So that strategy is working to get more relevance and converting more customers from just data users also to upsell basically voice services to them. So on voice, we're slightly discounted versus competition. Population coverage, 4G population coverage, you know that we rolled out a network 2G, 3G, 4G. All our sites are 4G coverage. So we have 60% population coverage. Competition claims 70% to 75% 4G population coverage. There is no independent study or assessment made by the regulator to confirm this data. So not be able to comment on that, but our 60% is for sure real, and it used to be higher than what competition has done. So I'll leave it at that. I cannot comment on competition population coverage at this stage.

And then coming back to you, Dilip, two related questions, one asked by Maddy and the other one by Tracy. With respect to M-PESA performance, the question being around why there was a decline half-on-half with respect to the growth of M-PESA revenue, if you could discuss any drivers around that versus trends, just the deceleration in growth of M-PESA, half-on-half?

Yes. So I think there is nothing on operational or commercial execution part that comes out specific to this H1, H2. I think the -- remember, our -- we have always been sign posting that we continue to grow M-PESA double digits, and we have been growing. I think it also depends on the -- sometimes the base effect of that. But what we can confirm you that there has not necessarily been any commercial reason or rationale or any particular part of the business that is slowing down or caused any concern on that. I think overall, M-PESA revenue profile, the growth profile, volume, transactions and monetization pretty much remain similar between H1 and H2. So this is not a concern on -- other than the fact that it could be a base effect or just the seasonality and how things shape up. But we continue to grow, as you have seen that we talk about growing M-PESA revenue double digit as far as our medium-term outlook is concerned, and we continue to deliver that as well. Back to you, Caroline.

Thank you, Dilip, for that clarification on the growth of M-PESA. And with that, I'll request Peter, if you could respond to this next question from Maddy of HSBC. with respect to FX availability. So the question reads, can you please discuss the FX availability situation in Kenya? FX rate looks quite stable despite global FX trends being very volatile. Are we able to get enough FX for CapEx and dividend distributions to internationals? Any issues in getting money out of Kenya right now? Just some color on FX availability, Peter.

Yes. So that's a great question. And I know that we faced liquidity challenges or at least investors face liquidity challenges sometime 2021, '22, '23-ish. And there was a long time that was taken to be able to deal with some of those challenges. I think the benefit that we have seen with the current governor, is he has been very deliberate in ensuring that the market continues to operate in the way it's always operated. Liquidity is very good. The import cover is very high. I believe, Dilip, you can confirm, but it's closer to 6 months, which says that liquidity for the country is good. Who knows how it will be affected by the current -- the current war in the Gulf because liquidity was also improved because of the way that the country was also sourcing oil for the country or refined oil for the country. When you go on the private side, we have not had or faced any issue. Certainly, not. Remember, we also have access to [ IT ] flows, but that notwithstanding even from a customer perspective, we don't -- we have not felt that the market has faced any challenges, and we don't hear anything like that from banks. So I do not believe that there is any issue that was experienced before. That is before we factor in any implication of the current issue in the Gulf. Dilip, feel free to add any further color.

Peter, I think you covered pretty much everything. Maddy from a reserve perspective, absolutely, I think the highest level Kenya Central Bank has ever had. So there is no liquidity issue market for even normal consumers. I think that's absolutely -- I think the issue could be because fuel is what the biggest part of the import and then how prices shape up in the future and what are the other implications is something for watch out. But right now, it's quite comfortable.

There are a couple of questions on fuel and energy costs, which I believe are coming from a place of the fact that there is potential exposure with respect to Middle East war. So maybe, Dilip, and maybe Peter could add on, maybe there's some color around the Middle East war impact in terms of potentially what we see right now in as much as it's still early days?

Yes. I think -- that's one of the emerging issues that Peter spoke about in this morning's presentation. In a very stable macro environment, the Middle East worries what is now the emerging risk, which you don't have a full assessment at this point in time. I think I'll try and see from what is happening in Kenya, initially, the -- we didn't have much of impact coming in because the prices were negotiated before and then there was availability, there was no issue at all. Then we have seen an increase in the diesel price, along with the reduction in the VAT, but still an increase in the [ pump ] price of diesel, which does impact. I think to that extent, you can say that risk is already crystallized and that we are aware of and you could say we have factored in. But beyond that, there are other issues linked to that. One is availability and then the ripple effect of fuel price in the overall inflation and logistics. I think that's what you need to watch out how that plays out. From an availability perspective, we typically are able to secure about 2 months of stocks at any given point in time. We store them based on our contract with the oil market here. But not necessarily, we cannot guarantee price at what price we will be at least it will be available. And both Kenya and Ethiopia, the telecom is an essential service. And therefore, whatever at any point in time, it is prioritized for the telecom operators. For Ethiopia, I think beyond that, the actual reliance and actual impact on the fuel is minimal. I think we can add on to that. It's not necessarily a big impact on the cost side because we have less reliance on diesel. But the challenge is on the impact of the fuel price increase on the and everything else. And therefore, inflation, which was on a very correct -- you've seen that inflation, the lowest inflation in the last how many years, maybe 10 years or 8 years is the lowest that we have seen at what we had a single-digit inflation. That could change, and that could also have an impact. I mean it is fair to say that what we know now is what is factored in, in our guidance in both Kenya and Ethiopia. What we don't know, we don't know. And obviously, you have to assess and see how this shapes up in the balance of the year and how -- and I don't think any one of us have any better view on this beyond what we know now today and which is what we cannot comment on. But this is confirmed that in emerging risk we are monitoring and tracking very closely, both from availability, ensuring that customer services is not disrupted, but also on the cost of fuel as well as the implications on the inflation. Peter, Wim?

Let's start with Wim on Ethiopia, but happy to comment on Kenya briefly, just to add to what you said. Actually, I do it now rather than hand over to Wim and then revert back. One of the other elements that is making us feel that our strategy has worked is you know over the past 2 years, 3 years, we have been on a big energy modernization program where we are solarizing and also modernizing our energy needs, especially on sites. And as a result of that, we now have 2,000 fully modernized and we already are in flight -- others are already in flight for this financial year. So as a business, we believe we will be more resilient long term, not short term, of course, short term, there's still a lot of implication. But certainly, we believe that, that investment will pay off and is starting to pay off even as we mitigate because we would have had a much bigger risk if we didn't have this program in play. Wim, you can answer some of our prioritization in Ethiopia.

Peter, so I can confirm what Dilip was saying. So we do not have a high dependency on fuel for our network operations in Ethiopia. 98% of our sites are connected to the grid. And as you probably know, the grid in Ethiopia is 100% hydro. So the fuel cost, I think that was one of the questions on the chat that I saw. The fuel cost as a stand-alone line item is about 3% of the total OpEx structure. So in terms of cost, we are not heavily depending on price fluctuations. Where we are more vulnerable is the inflation impact, the purchasing power impact, so more of the macroeconomic point of view, but not necessarily as a major contribution to our cost structure.

All right. And I'll come back to you, Peter. I have two related questions from Maddy and Tracy with respect to the license. And the question is around if we could clarify what was the cost of the license renewal? And is it all the licenses or only specific services? So just some color around the license that you spoke about in the morning.

Yes. On a later note, I thought that Maddy and Tracy will be extremely happy and ask me questions about cost and so on and so on. But actually, on a kind of more serious note, we were quite anxious that especially when the communication authority did not have enough time to renew those licenses and had to extend it for 2 years to '26. But now that we have had that renewal confirmed, that is actually very, very good for us. And I would say we've done this as a kind of normal business. We normally don't necessarily disclose license fees and all those things. These are part of the regulatory frameworks that the regulators have. But we are secure as far as licensing is concerned. So that's what I wanted to say because there was a bunch of licenses that was coming up for renewal by the end of June this year.

And now that I still have you, Peter, just a question around the regulatory environment from a policymaking perspective from Maddy and he's asking what are the risks of higher taxes on consumers or corporates? And are there any proposals to increase VAT, excise rates and the like?

So on a positive note, we are always very proactive in understanding the framing of tax proposals as leading up to the finance bill. Remember, I said at the beginning that we know that the finance bill is coming soon. Next year is an election year. So we are waiting to see the shape of the way the government wants to raise this revenue and which areas they are likely to deal with -- we are very connected with various bodies, whether that is private sector industry bodies and also, of course, with the ministry, the relevant ministries to ensure that the issues that affect the industry are understood, our needs are actually understood. But more importantly, that especially where taxes may lead to higher pricing that there is understanding and especially given what is happening in the environment. So we do not have sight at this stage of the framing of actually the finance bill. And when we do, of course, if there's a big risk, then we'll be able to get in touch with you guys through our IR team. But count on us to be proactive in managing this. However, we can never rule out whatever the government or whatever the revenue -- whatever the treasury intends to do so that they balance the books. And that's why we said the outstanding issue, both in Kenya and Ethiopia is the fiscal space and they are for tax will be an instrument. So we wait and see.

Dilip, moving over to you, some question on the Kenya numbers from here. And he does say that you highlighted that euro depreciation contributed to higher operating costs in Kenya. If you could help quantify the main areas of euro exposure within the Kenya business and explain how the FX movement impacted costs in that period? And then the second question still from Samuel is on the ECL provisions, the fact that they declined materially during the year. If you could please shed some color on the same?

Yes. I think I did mention about, yes, on the euro depreciation impacting the operating cost. And this has been pretty much in every market, it's not Kenya alone. Same happened in Ethiopia as well. Now our exposure in euro is, for example, the CapEx that we have two vendor policy, we have Nokia as well as we have Huawei. So Nokia, of course, payments are in euro to the extent we import. So -- and also a few other services that we -- be it in OpEx or be it in CapEx that we import from the eurozone where the currencies in euro. Overall, I can't quantify exactly how much is that, but I think our split between euro and USD is about 50-50. So 50% in euro and 50% in dollars. So the euro depreciated and you have seen that impact. But it's -- yes, of course, on an OpEx, it does impact. And this time, I think the depreciation was -- if I recall, the number was about 7.3%, and that's what has impacted the number. It's not a big number. Because we have over a period of time, we actually localized many of our vendor payments in local currency. That was one step that we have taken deliberately. I mean we -- if I can share with you the number, I think our payment -- we pay mostly 70% of our payments through -- in Kenya through local currency. So that's the exposure that still we have, but we -- these are imported and then you cannot have any choice. On ECL, you would recall last year's ECL provision. So it's in the context of you have to go back and see that we had an increase in ECL provision last year driven by -- mostly from the handset device financing. We did accelerate our device financing proposition -- and of course, still makes sense in terms of the overall business case, but it does impact in ECL when the collection falls short. And so there is also -- I think the technical issue of the way and also the way we wanted to give the customer propositions. So we took a pause and then kind of did a reset on not only doing through our own device financing through our own balance sheet, but also we decided to explore markets like open market and to the partner markets, the part as you have seen that our sales -- device sales, which is what we buy and sell from our [ either ] facility has also declined. You've seen a decline in our -- or you have seen a lower growth in our direct cost is also coming from the lower and also very small device financing, what we call that proposition compared to what we have done in the previous year is what has caused this reduction in the ECL. But remember that ECL reduction is in the context of a higher growth that we have seen in the last financial year.

We will be requesting that you respond to this question from Linet of Absa. And the question is around M-PESA in Ethiopia. So please advise on any updates regarding management's tactical approach to boost M-PESA penetration in Ethiopia. Do we have any recent partnerships under consideration? Just some color around the M-PESA strategy?

Okay. Yes. So today, we are at 25% penetration of the M-PESA users in the Safaricom base, 25% of 30-day telco users are also active M-PESA users. The primary usage today is buying data bundles. That is the cards that we're holding. And now we are upselling, let's say, upselling additional use cases, primarily focused around payments. That's why we are accelerating the rollout of our merchant network. Today, we have 70,000 30-day active merchants. So that becomes quite significant because we're getting more relevant out of the M-PESA wallet instead of just buying our own Safaricom products, also at 70,000 outlets, you can do actually M-PESA payments. And that will then allow going further to start upselling real financial services because you have now a history around doing payments, you can then start offering OD, buy now, pay later term loans, saving products. So it's really a journey of getting the customers on board with an attractive value proposition to buy Safaricom products, then converting them into customers using M-PESA to do payments. And then thirdly, you push them to the more sustainable truly financial services around saving and lending.

And I trust Shila that also does answer your question around M-PESA in Ethiopia as well. And just to acknowledge from the investors and analysts, we do appreciate you for the congratulatory messages you're putting also on the Q&A. So we do appreciate you for that. I'll request Dilip, if you could answer this question from Baidu. The question is, we have not heard much about data center capacity and utilization in both Kenya and Ethiopia. Would you be able to give an update on this?

Okay. So yes, it didn't come through probably in the way we present. We don't necessarily go through that level of details in data center. You would recall that we installed one of the most modern data center in Limuru, and that's fully operational. And the Fintech 2.0 that we have put into operation, I think the whole environment is in the new data center. Beyond that, currently, we are in -- so we are actually using pretty much what we have. And currently, we are also building or we are in the phase of building our -- the next data center close to where we have the -- we are constantly monitoring and assessing the requirements of the usage, and we have seen that the usage is growing and usage is also growing. Kenya is one of the probably leading countries where there's a lot of AI usage and that also puts significant demand on the capacity. So we do have our own data center, and we also leverage our partnership that we have with quite a few data center in Kenya. And I think you're quite familiar with them. They are, whether it's iXAfrica, OCOLO. So we leverage the ecosystem, but also we are expanding our data center to a much bigger and broader capacity. And we do have ambition to take it even further to build capacity now that we can serve the customers that we are not serving now. So currently, we are not necessarily under any pressure. The capacity is adequate, but we need to move fast in terms of building more capacity, be it by ourselves or any other partnership model that we can leverage on. So yes, I hope that answers your questions.

And the second question...

Sorry, I did not answer the Ethiopia question. I think probably Ethiopia data center, I think we are fairly capacitated. To your point, I think you are saying maybe we have opportunity to do beyond what we are serving our own needs and getting -- probably get more customers and more colocation in our data center, but that will happen probably at an appropriate time. I don't know, Wim, you have any color to add there, but I think we are fairly...

Dilip, nothing really to add. As Peter has mentioned in a way that sweat the asset space. So there is no immediate plan to expand on data center. We have enough for now. Of course, in the long term, probably need more, but there are also quite some opportunities in Ethiopia to do leasing if that would be required. So no particular urgent need for any data center expansion -- capacity expansion at this stage.

All right. Dilip, just still from Baidu, and this is with respect to satellite. So on your increased data usage for fixed and mobile, how much is partnering with satellite data companies contributed to the data consumption and economies of scale? And then on a longer-term basis, what's our strategy around this new infrastructure partnership? So if you could just comment around that and the strategy around satellite?

Yes. So I think Peter alluded this in the morning. Our strategy is not necessarily relying on only one particular operator. I think in the half yearly or even I think the full year results, then we spoke about that we were in discussion. And then I think in the half yearly results that we spoke about that we concluded our partnership with one of them, one of the operators, which is Starlink for two areas, which is one is on the backhaul and also potential replacement for VET with the services that they offer. So we have concluded that agreement along with other Vodacom markets. I'm actually this was also announced publicly -- and we also had the other agreement signed for the enterprise offerings for the [ DISH ] or the services that they provide. Yet converted that into an actual execution simply because Peter mentioned about it that I think the regulatory environment is still evolving and there has been -- I mean, the requirements from the regulator side for any satellite operators they come into Kenya need to have certain regulatory compliance and regulatory licensing that they need to do. What we are hearing is that, that's probably currently ongoing. So I mean, unfortunately, although we have the agreements in place, we have not necessarily been able to fully put into place that agreement into action. But hopefully, that gets sorted out in future. But we are also -- I think we spoke about our testing with AST Mobile. We have spoken to the other operators, including Kuiper, Amazon Kuiper. So the satellite will be a much more broad-based arrangement rather than just relying on one operator, but we also have to watch out how this particular regulatory environment plays out in Kenya as we wait for the more clarification and more clarity. But till such time, we have the agreement, but we'll only implement -- we will only launch only when we have the full regulatory.

I have two questions -- related questions from both Farooq and Jonathan and Peter, I'll be requesting that you kindly respond to this one. It's with respect to the Vodafone Kenya government stake sale. And the question is around with the court process, whether there's any update we can give on when to expect a ruling. And then the follow-up related question is, given the ownership changes expected, how does management think about maintaining political and regulatory goodwill whilst still earning attractive returns? Peter?

Those are the questions. I said they are set of questions. So -- but on a more serious note, I think it's a fair question, but I think the Chairman this morning did respond to it. What the characterization of this is that, remember as we are running our business as management. This is a transaction between two shareholders who are the big shareholders of Safaricom. Other than minor roles that we play, we actually are not involved in the actual transaction. So it's not in my gift to actually guide on what the process will be. But from what we know is that the process has been managed well so far, at least from what we see because the parliamentary process is now complete. There's a court process, and that will take this time. And so for us, we cannot express a view as to when the court will rule. Yes, there's a next court process, but I would prefer not to comment on that and wait for when that concludes in the fullness of time. So of course, once the share exchange happens, then the next steps will happen. In terms of your question on post share sale by government, I will say what I've said in the past and what I also have said to any stakeholder who have asked me this question. I think Vodafone, Vodacom are not new to Safaricom. They understand our strategy. They have been part of our strategy for a very long time. So our expectation is the strategic direction is not going to shift. And actually, the reason why there is interest in Safaricom is because of the quality of franchise and the just diversity of the business and the whole story that we drive. In terms of impact on our influence, government will continue to be a major shareholder at 20%, and we'll have directors of the Board. Treasury will still be part of our Board as our treasury representatives as shareholder on behalf of government. And then secondly, this is a regulated industry. So you do expect that, that will continue in the normal course. And that's one of the -- so Safaricom's role in this country has been related to the way we play the role for the country rather than purely the shareholders that we have. So I don't comment on any changes. I would prefer that we wait until that time. But I do not see any material shift in the way government thinks about regulating our industry just because the shareholding has happened.

And maybe, Dilip, just to close the loop on still a related question on the Vodacom acquisition. There's a question from Nancy, more accounting-related question. And the question reads, with that acquisition that will have a controlling 55% stake in Safaricom, given that it will trigger full IFRS consolidation of Safaricom results into Vodacom, could management clarify or give some color around what operational and structural changes are being considered under the new ownership dynamic? And whether there are any plans maybe to centralize any functions into South Africa? I mean I know it's early days, but Dilip, any color you'd give from a consolidation aspect perspective that would point us in that direction?

Yes. So I think I won't comment on anything which gets consolidated -- anything that gets done by South Africa or any other countries. But your point of the full IFRS consolidation is one of the impact of the change in ownership. And we are very much aware of it. And of course, we will have to wait till time the transaction is happening. But internally, we are very much aware. We know what efforts and what process need to change...

Caroline, I think Dilip is having challenges...

… transaction come through. So -- and due diligence of that has been done. There is nothing, switched off my video.

Yes, yes. I think we can hear you much better. Maybe you can just summarize again.

Yes. So what I was saying, the requirement of IFRS consolidation, full consolidation is very well understood by us. based on our engagement with Vodacom. Remember, we do still report, but report on a much smaller scale, the number of lines that need to be reported and the whole -- I think there is a whole exercise which was done as part of the due diligence exercise. And what I was confirming to you is that we are aware of it. We understand what ships are required. And also, we know that we can prepare well as and when this is required. This will require a little bit more capacity within the Safaricom accounting and reporting environment. And we don't think this is going to cause any major concern, which we can -- it's pretty much manageable. And I also said that we don't know or we don't anticipate at this point in time any change in where any consolidation of anything that will be done from South Africa perspective. Right now, it is business as usual with full preparation in anticipation of if that happens that we should be able to report and report in full compliance of IR.

I trust that you are able to capture it. We apologize for that network disruption there. Coming back to you, Peter, there is a question from John Davis of Bloomberg Intelligence. And the question is around the fact that Central Bank had a proposal last year to cut mobile P2P charges at an average of KES 10 by next year. Is that still a live discussion?

And it's a question and it's something we are aware of. It wasn't a formal view or even policy or position of the bank itself. It came from a recommendation that was initiated through a process of research and so on, funded externally. So it wasn't something that the Central Bank came up with a policy. But that notwithstanding, as you know, over the past 4 years, 5 years, we've been on a journey to ensure that we have more affordable services on the M-PESA, in particular, P2P -- and many of you know that we have guided you over the years, over the last few years on how we continue to reduce either to avail more free services or actually to reduce the cost of various services, and we'll continue to do that proactively instead of waiting for the regulator. One of the things that the regulator mentioned or rather that report mentioned is that the cost was high and the cost was in relation to what was being charged. What was excluded is all the transactions that are free that had been excluded from that competition, and we did feedback into the Central Bank that there's a lot of transactions that are free. And this morning, when we released results, we did give the detail of the split between chargeable and nonchargeable and 58% mostly what we call of transactions on M-PESA are free. So we need to continue to demonstrate to the Central Bank and to anyone else that we are actually offering services that are affordable. And we'll continue to have this dialogue and keep you informed.

Dilip, coming back to you, a question here from Farooq on M-PESA revenue contribution. So as it approaches 50%, will group margins and returns continue to improve? And where do you see M-PESA revenue contribution in 5 years' time?

Yes, this is one question I was asked in the morning in another interview. And we -- what we said we don't necessarily look at what will be the contribution. So contribution of M-PESA revenue is not management's target. What we've spoken about is how we are going to grow the business overall. Within that M-PESA is also a very important part of the growth story. You recall, Farooq, that we spoke about for Kenya, a medium-term outlook, that outlook, especially on the top line side, we said the three streams of revenue or three business segments that we track and that we report to you, connectivity business, fixed business, which also includes fixed wireless and M-PESA business. And we've given a color what we believe in the medium term, we can sustain the growth. On connectivity, we said that we expect to continue growing high single digit. You have seen the number from the report. We delivered close to 7%, a 6.9% growth for the full year in connectivity business, of course, driven majorly by mobile data, which contributed 80%, 82% of the growth. And within that, we said that we expect, given the current penetration and the growth trajectory and also still the penetration and the market opportunity, the untapped market opportunity that we have with 30 million-plus devices, only half of them are using only 1 GB per customer per month, we believe that there is a runway to grow double digit in mobile data. Then we spoke about M-PESA, we said that we believe we can sustain a double-digit growth in M-PESA -- and that confidence is coming from the expansion in the ecosystem that you continue to see driven by the new products and launch -- the new product launches that we continue to do, which is visible. You have seen the numbers, we grew 13.4%. But within that, the quality of growth is quite broad-based even within M-PESA. It's not just traditional businesses that we are growing. Even the newer segments, including financial service segment, you have seen the merchant payments growing 36%. We have seen the credit recovery growing 20% plus. So it's a broad-based growth that we see. So that's what we said we can grow mobile financial services, the M-PESA can sustain a double-digit growth. Then comes the fixed, although on a small base, we said we can also sustain a double-digit growth. This is one area we're investing, and we believe it will give us the return on a long-term basis. So I think if we do this, this is what the management -- we said as part of our outlook, then whatever comes as part of the contribution of M-PESA is an outcome. And you have seen that it's now touched 45.6%. We don't know when it will touch 50%. But I think from a margin perspective, the mix of that, you have seen that we used to talk about a lot about the monetization take rate. The newer services that we are launching have lower take rate, but it also has lower cost. So therefore, margin is still protected. So we have not seen any dilution of M-PESA margin just because we have moved into newer services. But what we are conscious and what we do and we'll be doing consciously is about giving value back to the customers in any form and shape that you are able to do. And the small value transactions Peter spoke about is one way of giving back. Sometimes it doesn't show up. So there you see that we are able to grow the revenue, but you also give back to the customers. I think that business model is working well for us, launch more newer services, create the loyalty to ensure that the ecosystem grows and then we are able to grow revenue. And so to your question, yes, we don't necessarily have any target that we are aiming for to have any particular revenue to have a mix of this. What we are driving for is what I spoke about in our medium-term outlook. And we don't believe that there is any threat on the margins just because M-PESA proportion of M-PESA could grow beyond 50%. I hope that answers your question, Farooq.

Just maybe some color, Dilip, Shila's question here on MTRs that there was no mention of low MTRs. But what was the impact of low MTRs in FY '26? So maybe just some color around that, but more specifically around the -- how we should think through voice revenues going forward now that there is a regulated glide path?

So the reason I haven't spoken about MTR because the impact in FY '26 was only for 1 month. And I think you rightly pointed out to the glide path that is now -- is putting into place. But the glide path is in a way, will not impact any particular year's performance. Yes, it does change the incoming revenue a bit, but it's not necessarily a big change in the way it will show up. And I didn't talk about it because it was just for 1 month in FY '26. Yes. So we welcome the glide path, the way it has been framed by regulator, and it's actually -- it's good for the industry because that's what has been -- we have been talking about it that any big drop in [ NPR ] in one single year, it does impact the industry. So it should be a glide path. And we see that, that's how regulator has also framed it. So we are happy about it. But of course, as I said, there was not much impact in FY'26.

Samuel, I see a question around the initiatives of reducing FX exposure. I think quite a bit of that was addressed. So happy to touch base offline if you need some quantification. But having said that, Dilip, there's a question on fixed broadband monetization strategy from Samuel. And maybe actually this one I can request Peter to respond and Dilip, you could add on with something that Peter, you mentioned in the morning that whilst higher speeds can changed pricing support customer retention and preserve ARPU, some users may see limited incentive to migrate to higher-priced packages. So beyond speed upgrades, are there plans to deepen monetization through bundling or cross-selling additional products and services within the household ecosystem? He says that Safaricom had previously explored adjacent offerings such as bundled insurance products. So could management provide an update on the strategy for non-telco services within the fiber customer base going forward? Peter, some thoughts around that.

Yes. But the way that I would think about it is to say we need to get our basics right in fixed before even we think about bundling, loyalty, retention and all those elements. And here, what I said in the morning that one of the biggest things that we have done is to realize that we are serving only [ Alea ] at the top at price points that were beyond reach for your medium to low budget users. And in the past, say, 6 months to 9 months, now we've done all the work that allows us to look at the economics of serving those two customer segments. And therefore, we are more confident as we get to '27 that we have propositions and cost profile that allows us to price but also to deliver the actual experience we want for medium and also budget segments. And a good example is affordable housing. We are already involved with the affordable housing -- affordable housing project where we are one of the primary providers of connectivity. When these houses are open, we already have connected. And all we are doing is to migrate those customers to propositions, but the actual fiber is installed. The second thing that we have done is to make sure the cost profile is right, and we've done a lot of reengineering and we've been able to reduce the cost by, in some cases, up to 50% by actually working through the value chain or the supply chain to ensure that we get materials that allow us instead of starting with bulk fiber connections, we can actually make it much simpler. And then the third thing -- the third thing which is important is we are also piloting and you've seen it with small ISPs, we are piloting tokenized WiFi to see whether we can democratize access based on use when you just want a token, token and not actually a bundle or even a plan. So once we get that right, and I wanted to add to the comments that the question that have been asked on M-PESA in terms of whether we are targeting what happens when we are at 50%. Our -- we now want to move in the future to more we are offering services to segments of customers that are converged, whether on the consumer side or actually on the enterprise side, for merchants. So therefore, we are less concerned about products that we are bundling together, and we are more interested in having converged solutions for segments of customers. So we talk about Bundle Ya – Boda, which is Boda Boda, right Bundle's farmers. We are targeting farmers. We are targeting various components within the customer segment. So therefore, when you bring it to fixed, we will actually also use the same philosophy once we have gotten our app together. And in particular, one of the reasons why we increased speeds is we were also seeing more churn because we didn't have levels of quality of experience that we needed to be able to ensure at peak demand that we have the right experience. So we will use it. We'll use the same converged philosophy in fixed, but we need to get the basics right fast.

And I'm looking now towards closing the session. So before I bring on back Peter to make closing remarks, -- we have responded to your questions. A lot of them, the team has been responding also offline and especially with respect to anything requiring quantification. So that is coming your way. So should you have any other follow-up post that, still feel free to get in touch with us through the main channel, the Investor Relations e-mail address, and we shall still address that. So I'll request Dilip to respond to this last question. I have sort of saved it for last from Maddy with respect to the dividend payout. I think the expectation is that you would want more dividends. So he's saying the dividend payout ratio has increased. Is there more upside before I bring on Peter for closing remarks. Dilip?

No, I don't know what calculation Maddy, you have done. I'm happy to -- the team can -- very happy to engage with you. Actually, dividend policy have not changed. What exactly we have paid is 80% of our net income at consolidated level, excluding IAS 29 impact and adjusting to adjusting minority interest. So to that extent, we haven't changed. The growth obviously is coming from the reduced losses in Ethiopia and of course, a solid performance, solid growth of 24.7% growth in net income in Kenya. But happy to engage with you separately. There is no plan or there is no intention to change dividend payout. We're actually just applying our existing policy, and that's how we're paying our full year dividend as well. Back to you Caroline.

Once again, feel free to reach out to us for any other follow-up questions. But for now, I will bring the session to a close, as I request Peter to give his closing remarks. Peter?

Thank you, Caroline. Thank you, Dilip, and thank you to Wim for answering the questions. And thank you to everyone for attending this session. incredibly good questions. Hopefully, we have done justice in terms of answering your questions. If there is any residual concerns or questions, Caroline and the team will be able to answer them in the background now that we've finally announced our results and if there's any clarification, we can deal with it. In closing, I want to say we are very pleased with the results that we have announced, very pleased with the very strong Kenya franchise and still very clear that there's still more opportunity to continue to drive performance in Kenya. And then really encouraged, I should say, by the path that we now see that is clearer in Ethiopia through the regulator-led pricing moves. And hopefully, if the industry does follow through, we believe that then we have a more sustainable industry. On a later note, I was surprised that there was not enough questions on are you still staying true to your EBITDA positive -- not guidance, but intention. And also, I was asking Dilip and Caroline to tell me through individual investors, what their model say, whether they still say [ '29 on '30 ], but that is for another day, but really great to have this chat. And thank you and very, very good evening.

Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Dilip. Thank you, Wim. Thank you, Tim. From us here is to wish you a good evening and a good day and to keep engaging us. As Peter has said, this is just the beginning of many conversations. So I'm sure we'll be getting in touch with you in various forums. Otherwise, have yourselves a good day and keep well. Thank you very much.