Telebirr Moved 4 Trillion Birr in a Year, Equal to 22% of GDP. The Device Plan Now Has to Double.

Ethio Telecom presented the second-year business plan of its three-year Next Horizon: Digital & Beyond 2028 strategy on Friday. The headline figure from year one: telebirr processed 4 trillion birr in transactions, a volume equal to 22% of Ethiopia's 2025/26 GDP.

That is transaction value moving across a platform, not revenue or output — the same birr passing through telebirr several times counts several times. What it measures is throughput, and the throughput is now large relative to the economy it sits in.

The targets

• 75 million active telebirr users by June 2028, from 60 million now
• 21 trillion birr in annual transaction value by year three
• 842 billion birr in cumulative strategy revenue over the three years, which the company puts at 154% above the preceding Lead for Growth period
• 18 billion birr in digital microcredit disbursed in year one

The device problem

The second-year plan calls for distributing up to 2.6 million smart devices, including more than one million subsidised znexus handsets.

Ethio Telecom distributed 900,000 handsets between roughly October 2025 and June 2026 — about 100,000 a month. Hitting 2.6 million in a fiscal year requires more than double that rate, sustained.

The financing is assembled from several sources. The company has a 15 billion birr agreement with Siinqee Bank, of which 4 billion birr is earmarked for helping low-income users buy smartphones, and a partnership with Awash Bank on the Tila micro-credit service inside telebirr, with an annual credit pool above 2 billion birr for customers buying devices in instalments. Eligibility for applicants without banking histories is decided by an AI-assisted credit-scoring system.

The wider telebirr-linked microcredit pool is projected to grow from 19.51 billion birr to 33.08 billion birr in the coming budget year.

Why devices are the constraint

Smartphone penetration on Ethio Telecom's network is around 36%. The company wants 65% of its mobile subscribers converted into active mobile broadband users.

Network build-out for year two: 1,625 new mobile centres, 605 of them rural, 4G coverage extended to 95% of the population, and 5G in a total of 73 cities.

CEO Frehiwot Tamru, presenting the roadmap, said that by the end of the period Ethio Telecom will serve over 100 million customers and strengthen Ethiopia's position in the African digital economy.

Sources: Tikvah Ethiopia, 4 September 2026 · Birr Metrics — telebirr transactions and GDP share · Birr Metrics — device distribution target