Vodacom has tightened its grip on East Africa's biggest telecoms operator, completing a $2.1 billion deal — roughly R35 billion — to lift its effective stake in Kenya's Safaricom to about 55%. The transaction, first announced in December 2025, hands the Johannesburg-listed group majority control of one of the continent's most valuable technology and financial-services businesses.
Under the deal, Vodacom acquired an additional 20% effective interest: 15% bought from the Government of Kenya and a further 5% from its parent, Vodafone Group, at KES34 a share. The Kenyan government retains a 20% holding in Safaricom, which remains listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
Why Safaricom matters
Safaricom is best known for M-Pesa, the mobile-money platform that transformed everyday payments in Kenya and now generates about 44% of the operator's revenue there. The company has also been expanding into Ethiopia, where it has built a customer base of roughly 14 million, alongside a growing suite of cloud, enterprise and internet-of-things services. For Vodacom, consolidating control means it can fold more of Safaricom's fintech and connectivity earnings directly into its own results.
A milestone for Vision 2030
The completion is a centrepiece of Vodacom's Vision 2030 strategy, which leans heavily on deepening its presence in Africa's fastest-growing markets and scaling digital and financial services beyond traditional voice and data. It caps a drawn-out process: the deal was cleared to close only after Kenya's Court of Appeal stayed a conservatory order on 26 June, removing the last legal hurdle.
The move positions Vodacom as an even bigger player in African fintech at a time when mobile-money adoption continues to climb across the continent. For South African investors, it also deepens the group's exposure to high-growth markets beyond a sluggish domestic economy — a bet that Africa's digital-payments boom still has room to run.
