Safaricom 2018 Sustainable Business Report

37 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT 2018 SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT We continued to make significant progress with regards to the ongoing expansion of our network during the year. The focus remained on increasing broadband coverage and we rolled out an additional 703 3G-enabled sites, many of these were in rural areas, which equates to providing an additional 1 per cent of the population with coverage. We also deployed 562 4G-enabled sites during the year. Most of these sites used the 800 MHz band to improve capacity and data speeds in major towns and, as a result, we achieved rapid growth and extended 4G services to an additional 10 per cent of the population, meeting the ambitious target we set for ourselves. We failed to achieve our target of 4,646 2G-enabled sites due to logistical challenges and instability/security concerns in certain parts of the country, but we still deployed an additional 312 2G-enabled sites during the year and provide 96 per cent of the population with access to 2G services. S D G 9 Network Coverage (% population) 2G ENABLED 3G ENABLED 4G ENABLED 95% 85% 25% 92% 69% 96% 86% 35% 95% 78% 13% FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 2,010 720 5,060 30% FOOTPRINT (kilometers) ENTERPRISE BUILDINGS CONNECTED RESIDENTIAL HOMES PASSED SITES (BTS) CONNECTED TO NETWORK NO. OF CONNECTED: TOWNS COUNTIES (+1,226) (+3,030) (+1,788) 3,236 3,750 6,848 34% 16 (+1,464) (+1,445) (+40,569) 4,700 5,195 47,417 37% 46 (+769) (+1,922) (+94,283) 5,469 7,117 141,700 50% 46 18 36 72 * * Due to difficulties classifying towns based on amenities, we have changed this metric to towns with a population of greater than 100,000. FOCUSED EXPANSION OF FIBRE OPTIC NETWORK