Safaricom PLC announces new venture into health insurance agency

Safaricom PLC the 1 billion Dollar earner in profits as per year 2023 Audited accounts remains the East and Central Africa most profitable company. It has not yet finished its ambitious business expansion plans above its traditional core services of Voice, Data, Mobile telephony devices sales and MPesa mobile payment platform.

Its roll out for 4G and 5G mobile network recently covered her neighboring country - Ethiopia was the latest expansion venture beyond Kenya. Ethiopia has a larger population than Kenya that make business analysts view this statistics as the main reason that could have attracted the corporation into this investment with targets to continue with expansion on its subscriber base targeting revenues growth. A good take home for global investors.

Observers will be keenly following on the long run how the firm performs in the new market over the mid term and long term basis.

The new venture comes with acquisition of an agency license from the Insurance Regulatory Authority

CEO, Dr. Peter Ndegwa C.B.S announcing on 7th November 2024 as the company discussed its half-year performance. The license will allow the company to offer insurance products targettingo its customers.

So far, the first insurance related product that has been successfully tested is insurance for phones and other devices that Safaricom sells at its shops across the country - Kenya.

At the same time, Safaricom has rolled out M-PESA – RATIBA, a service on the MPESA app that enables customers to set up standing orders to automatically pay recurring bills, such as TV subscriptions.

The new CEO Dr. Peter Ndegwa C.B.S. took over the realms of the giant corporation operations from its former CEO, the late Bob Collemore. Ndegwa is the first Kenyan CEO that has also led the company grow to a 1 billion US Dollar mark profit in 2023 while MPesa remains the most valuable revenue earning product for the company.

On 7th November 2024, the head of the company announced about the agency license from the Insurance Regulatory Authority.

Other corporations and local companies offering diverse services outside insurance have also ventured into the insurance sector that has a low uptake in Kenyas economy.

Equity bank, a financial based company in Banking sector launched Equity Afya to boost on its market share and has been posting good returns,

The current government led by Dr. William Ruto has also been transitioning its health Authority from former NHIF to Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) targeting a larger pool of contributors with contributions based on net income for employees instead of a flat contributor rate as held in the former health insurance fund - NHIF.

Safaricom has an expansive mobile network in Kenya offering among others, mobile payment platform MPesa that has subscribers spanning worldwide and the core 4/5G voice and data network services penetrating the region.

Her shares are trading in Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) with share holders reeping big while earning good returns on dividends making the company worth investing in.

It is also the biggest employer to the Kenyan economy and the biggest revenue remitter to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), the Agency that collect Tax revenues on behalf of the Treasury, a Government of Kenya department responsible for budgetary funding and financial planning.

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