NAIROBI (Reuters) – Shares of Safaricom surged more than 8% on the Nairobi bourse on Friday after it secured a mobile financial services licence in Ethiopia, market participants said.
Ethiopia’s Finance Minister Ahmed Shide announced on Thursday his country had given Safaricom the licence in one of Africa’s largest telecoms markets as the company formally switched on its network in the Horn-of-Africa country, the first by a private operator.
“It will bring the break even period forward by approximately two years,” said Lisa Kimathi, an investment analyst at Standard Investment Bank.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; editing by Jason Neely and James Macharia Chege)
