For years, Safaricom was more than just a telecommunications company. It was a national success story. It was the company that connected villages to cities, revolutionized financial transactions through M-Pesa and positioned Kenya as a global leader in mobile money innovation. Millions of Kenyans proudly defended the company whenever criticism emerged because they genuinely believed Safaricom cared about its customers.
Today, however, a growing number of customers are beginning to ask whether that Safaricom still exists.
The latest corporate celebration of Peter Ndegwa’s six-year tenure paints a picture of a company firing on all cylinders. Shareholders are smiling. Revenue is growing. Profits are increasing. Ethiopia is expanding. M-Pesa continues to dominate. Investors are applauding. Analysts are praising management. Boardrooms are celebrating transformation.
But outside those boardrooms, many customers are telling a completely different story.
The ordinary Kenyan is not experiencing revenue growth. They are not experiencing shareholder returns. They are not experiencing investor confidence. What they are experiencing is a company that increasingly appears detached from the frustrations of the people who made it successful in the first place.
Across social media platforms, customer forums and consumer complaint channels, a common theme continues to emerge. Customers complain about unreliable internet. They complain about expensive data. They complain about poor customer service. They complain about products that fail to perform as advertised. Most importantly, they complain about a company that appears increasingly unwilling to listen.
The most visible example of this growing dissatisfaction has been the wave of complaints surrounding Safaricom’s 5G routers.
When Safaricom launched the routers, they were marketed as part of the company’s vision for Kenya’s digital future. Customers were promised high-speed connectivity capable of powering homes, businesses and remote work. Many people invested significant amounts of money believing they were purchasing a premium internet solution from the country’s most trusted telecommunications provider.
Instead, many customers now claim they have become unwilling participants in an endless cycle of complaints, troubleshooting sessions and repeated visits to Safaricom shops.
The stories are remarkably similar. Customers say they purchase the routers, experience repeated service interruptions, contact customer care, receive technical explanations, wait for solutions, and then find themselves back at the beginning of the same frustrating process.
A router should not turn a customer into a technician. A customer should not have to become a network engineer simply to access a service they have already paid for. People buy internet to work, study, communicate and run businesses. They do not buy internet to spend their days chasing support tickets and repeating the same complaint to different customer care representatives.
The growing frustration over these devices is important because it represents something larger than a technical problem. It represents a growing perception that Safaricom no longer feels the urgency to resolve customer pain.
When a company receives one complaint, it can reasonably argue that the issue is isolated. When it receives dozens of complaints, it should investigate. When hundreds of customers begin raising similar concerns, a responsible company should acknowledge the scale of the problem, communicate openly and take decisive corrective action.
Many customers feel Safaricom has failed that test.
What makes the situation particularly dangerous for the company is that the complaints are emerging at a time when Safaricom’s influence over Kenya’s digital economy has never been greater.
This is no longer just a telecommunications company.
Safaricom controls a significant portion of Kenya’s communication infrastructure. It facilitates billions of shillings in daily transactions through M-Pesa. It handles sensitive customer information. It powers businesses, government services and personal communications.
Few private companies anywhere in Africa occupy such a strategic position within a national economy.
That level of dominance brings immense responsibility.
Unfortunately, dominance can also breed complacency.
When companies become too successful, they sometimes begin confusing dependence with loyalty. They assume that because customers continue using their services, those customers must be happy.
That assumption can be fatal.
Many customers remain with Safaricom not necessarily because they are satisfied but because leaving has become increasingly difficult. Their businesses rely on M-Pesa. Their families use Safaricom lines. Their clients expect Safaricom payment channels. Their entire digital lives are built around an ecosystem that has become almost impossible to avoid.
This creates a dangerous situation where customers continue paying despite their frustrations.
In such circumstances, rising revenue can become misleading.
A company may interpret increasing revenues as evidence of customer satisfaction when in reality customers simply lack practical alternatives.
That is why shareholder success should never be confused with customer happiness.
A company can make record profits while simultaneously providing declining service.
A company can celebrate growth while customers quietly become more frustrated.
A company can dominate a market while gradually destroying the goodwill that made it successful.
Many observers believe Safaricom is approaching that crossroads.
The concerns extend beyond products and services. Increasingly, questions are also being raised about accountability.
Kenya’s regulators have often been quick to crack down on smaller companies accused of failing customers. Yet critics argue that Safaricom appears to operate under a different standard.
When complaints trend online, the response from regulators is often muted. When customers raise concerns about service quality, public accountability appears limited. When frustrations accumulate, many consumers feel they are left to fight battles on their own.
This perception creates another dangerous narrative—that Safaricom has become too big to challenge.
Whether true or not, the perception itself damages trust.
Public trust is one of the most valuable assets any company can possess. Unlike infrastructure, trust cannot be purchased. Unlike revenue, trust cannot be generated through marketing. Unlike market share, trust cannot be forced.
Trust is earned through consistent delivery, transparency and accountability.
Safaricom built its empire on trust.
Millions of Kenyans trusted the company with their communications. They trusted it with their money. They trusted it with their personal information. They trusted it to deliver services reliably and responsibly.
The company now faces a critical question: does it still deserve that trust?
The answer will not be determined by annual reports, shareholder meetings or investor presentations.
It will be determined by customer experiences.
It will be determined by whether complaints are resolved.
It will be determined by whether products perform as promised.
It will be determined by whether customers feel heard when problems arise.
Most importantly, it will be determined by whether Safaricom remembers who built the company in the first place.
It was not investors.
It was not analysts.
It was not consultants.
It was ordinary Kenyans.
The farmer using M-Pesa to receive payments.
The small business owner buying data bundles.
The student attending online classes.
The entrepreneur running a startup from a mobile phone.
These are the people who transformed Safaricom from a telecommunications company into a national institution.
Today, many of those same people feel abandoned.
That should worry Safaricom far more than any regulatory investigation or negative headline.
Companies rarely collapse because of a single scandal.
They decline when they gradually lose the trust of the people who sustain them.
The danger signs are often subtle at first. Customer complaints increase. Frustration grows. Loyalty weakens. Public affection fades.
Then one day, the company discovers that people are no longer staying because they love the brand.
They are staying because they feel trapped.
For Safaricom, that is the greatest risk of all.
The company’s future will not be decided by how loudly it celebrates success.
It will be decided by how seriously it listens to criticism.
Because in the end, no amount of profits can compensate for the loss of public trust.
And no monopoly, no matter how powerful, is immune from the consequences of forgetting its customers.
