Ethio Telecom Targets 100M Users, 75M Telebirr Accounts in New 3-Year Plan

Ethio Telecom  has launched its new three-year strategic plan, “Next Horizon: Digital & Beyond 2028 Strategy”, marking the next phase of its transformation journey. The announcement was made at the Science Museum in Addis Ababa, as the company concluded its previous LEAD Growth Strategy (2022–2025), which it says positioned it as Ethiopia’s digital powerhouse.

The new strategy, which runs from July 2025 to June 2028, aligns with the National Digital Ethiopia 2025 plan and seeks to transform Ethio Telecom into a globally competitive, regionally diversified, and digitally empowered enterprise. With over 83 million subscribers and 131 years of industry presence, the operator says it is uniquely positioned to drive Ethiopia’s digital and economic aspirations.

Anchored in a Balanced Scorecard framework, the plan integrates financial sustainability, customer experience, operational excellence, and human capital development. Its six strategic themes include:

• Delivering digital-first, customer-centric services,

• Driving technology innovation in AI, IoT, 5G and cloud,

• Strengthening operational excellence through AI-powered automation,

• Diversifying business into fintech, e-commerce and enterprise solutions,

• Developing future-ready human capital, and

• Building a trusted, sustainable brand with strong ESG commitments.

Key targets under the strategy include expanding 4G coverage from 71% to 85%, rolling out 5G in 10 additional cities, and constructing 1,228 new mobile sites, including 322 in rural areas. Ethio Telecom also plans to migrate 320,000 customers from copper to fiber, boost data center capacity, and convert up to 1,000 sites annually to green energy solutions.

The company projects its customer base to grow to 100 million by the end of the strategy period, including 67.3 million mobile broadband users and 1.6 million fixed broadband subscribers. Its fintech platform, telebirr, is expected to scale to 75 million users, with transaction values projected to rise to 21.3 trillion ETB.

Ethio Telecom aims to generate 842.3 billion ETB in revenue over the three years, a 154% increase from the previous strategy period, while contributing 253 billion ETB in taxes and 111.3 billion ETB in dividends to the government.

The launch underscores Ethio Telecom’s ambitions to evolve beyond a traditional telecom operator into a technology and innovation leader, expanding digital access while positioning Ethiopia as a rising digital hub in Africa.