When Safaricom was founded in 1997 as a small department within Telkom Kenya, few could have predicted that it would grow into one of Africa’s most influential technology companies.
In the 1990s, people had to walk into a telephone booth to make a phone call, send letters through the post office, and send money by long-distance bus.
With Safaricom now part of Kenya’s story, all these are stories of the past, with the TechCo’s different offerings serving those needs.
This origin story begins within the Kenya Posts & Telecommunications Corporation in 1993, when it launched an analogue network.
The department’s goal was to experiment with the first-generation (1G) cellular network, the Extended Total Access Control System (ETACS).
Three years later, Kenya adopted the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the standard developed to describe protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks.
The mobile revolution had rung home, and in 1999, the KPTC department, known as Safaricom, applied for and was granted a 25-year license as a mobile cellular operator and service provider.
Safaricom became the new entrant in the mobile telecommunications market after Telkom Kenya and KenCell, gearing up for a nationwide rollout.
The company started with 12,000 subscribers inherited from KPTC, which was now obsolete following the passing of the Kenya Information and Communication Amendment Act, 1998.
This was the foundation for the company, which now boasts over 60 million customers in Kenya and Ethiopia.
When Safaricom was officially launched in October 2000, the company invested KSh3.7 billion, currently equivalent to KSh8.4 billion, in network expansion for the new 2G frequency. The equipment for the first base transceiver stations was provided by the German company Siemens.
The launch of Safaricom marked the start of a revolution in Kenya’s telecommunications sector.
Between 2001 and 2004, Safaricom connected people by introducing SIM cards which ran on 2G and 3G networks.
The company focused on connecting all of Kenya’s major towns and launched mobile internet services in 2004, the first in Kenya.
Safaricom, Chief Technology and Information Officer, James Maitai, joined the company in 2006 and was one of the engineers who travelled across the country to roll out the sites.
“My day-to-day job used to cover the whole country. I used to travel a lot, basically choosing locations for our base stations, ensuring that we have the best coverage, end-to-end design and most optimal, cost-effective, and ensuring also the sites can be buckled,” said Maitai.
Internet
Before 2005, only ISPs could offer internet services in the country.
The situation changed after the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), now known as the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), issued a new licensing framework in late 2004, following the end of Telkom Kenya’s monopoly in June 2004.
One significant change introduced by the CCK was that providers could build their own ground stations, formally known as Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), to provide internet access.
This paved the way for mobile telecommunications companies to offer mobile internet services via GPRS and EDGE connections. Safaricom launched mobile internet (Edge) in 2004, giving Kenyans access to the web at 384 kilobytes per second (384Kbps).
The available speed would increase to 7.2 megabytes per second (7.2 Mbps) with the launch of the 3G network in 2008, with upgrades to 21 Mbps and then 42 Mbps following in 2010.
One of the most significant moments in the history of the internet in Kenya happened in 2009 when the East African Marine Systems (TEAMS), a 5,500-kilometre subsea cable, landed in Nyali, Mombasa County.
The fibre-optic cable would connect Kenya to Fujairah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and onward to data centres in Europe and other parts of the world.
Landing fibre-optic in Kenya reduced the round-trip time for connecting to the internet – basically sending a signal from Kenya to a data centre outside via satellite – from 700 milliseconds (0.7 seconds) to 100 milliseconds.
As the fibre optic cable was rolled out inland, it enabled another phase in the evolution of internet access.
By linking Base Transmission Stations (BTS), commonly known as masts or boosters, to fibre-optic cables, Safaricom could offer faster internet access to its customers.
In 2014, Safaricom became the first 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network to provide broadband internet connectivity on mobile devices, followed by 4G+ in 2015.
The 4G network enabled customers to download and upload files faster and enjoy buffer-free streaming of audio and video.
LTE Advanced also enabled ‘Carrier Aggregation’, allowing customers to benefit from increased bandwidth by aggregating different LTE spectrum bands.
With 4G+, customers can get peak download speeds of 150 Mbps, which is double the speed they get on 4G due to the higher data capacity.
Safaricom unveiled its Home Fibre service in 2014. The company also began laying its own terrestrial fibre-optic network in 2013, which supported faster mobile broadband through its 4G network starting in 2014.
In 2018, Safaricom launched voice and video calls over its 4G network, popularly known as Voice over LTE (VoLTE). This service offered crystal-clear calls with High-Definition voice quality.
With VoLTE, users could also make calls and browse at 4G speeds simultaneously.
In 2022, Safaricom scaled up again when it became the first service provider in Kenya to launch 5G, offering customers speeds of up to 700 Mbps.
The integration of 5G has played a pivotal role in enhancing the company’s network capabilities as it supports real-time data processing at the network edge, which is crucial for applications like the Internet of Things (IoT).
M-PESA
In 2007, M-PESA was introduced. This laid the foundation for e-commerce in the country and changed the future of banking, taking tremendous strides toward financial inclusion. And thus began partnerships with local lenders and telcos.
Originally a pilot program to help microfinance customers with loan repayments, M-PESA rapidly evolved into a revolutionary mobile money service for person-to-person transfers, payments, and savings.
This innovation laid the foundation for financial inclusion in Kenya and spurred significant tech development.
While other mobile payment systems required smartphones or special equipment, M-Pesa used simple SMS and USSD codes. Your phone just needed to send text messages.
Instead of relying on bank branches or ATMs, M-Pesa built a network of agents, small shopkeepers, kiosks, and entrepreneurs who could help customers convert cash to digital money and back again.
Transition to techco
Over the years, Safaricom has continued to enhance data usage, placing affordable internet in the hands of its customers and enabling them to become part of the digital revolution.
In 2021, Safaricom announced a bold shift in strategy to transform from a telecommunications company into a technology company by 2025.
This strategic shift, to become Africa’s leading purpose-led technology company by 2030, involves investing in infrastructure such as undersea cables, enhancing its M-Pesa platform with the Fintech 2.0 upgrade, and using AI to improve customer experiences and operational efficiency.
M-PESA Fintech 2.0 is a significant overhaul of the M-PESA platform, moving to a cloud-native, microservices architecture to increase transaction capacity, enhance resilience, and enable faster innovation.
The Fintech 2.0 platform has embedded advanced artificial intelligence to strengthen fraud detection, enable self-healing, and power real-time monitoring on M-PESA.
Its cloud-native foundation ensures higher performance, instant scalability, and faster deployment of new products.
The company is also expanding its offerings to provide digitisation and financial services to enterprises and the public sector.
Safaricom’s technological evolution has been anchored on one principle: using innovation to transform lives.
Through education, health, and agriculture initiatives, it continues to demonstrate that technology, when applied with purpose, can bridge inequality and expand opportunity.
Safaricom’s story mirrors Kenya’s rise as a regional technology hub, powered by connectivity and a vision for a digitally inclusive future.