Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore.Photo/the-star.co.ke

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Mobile firm Safaricom plans to spend 38.86 billion shillings on dividends.

The figure represents 80 percent of the net profit the company generated for the year ended March 2017.

Shareholders will pocket 97 cents per share if they approve the dividend payout.

The telco made 45.1 billion shillings in full year net profit, up 18.3 percent on 38.1 billion shillings the firm made last year.

This was mainly driven by service revenue at 204 billion shillings as well as handsets and other revenue at 8.7 billion shillings.

Voice revenue rose 2.9 percent to 93.46 billion shillings supported by 3 million new customers the telco added during the year.

On the other hand, M-PESA revenue rose 32.7 percent to 55.1 billion shillings supported by an increase in active monthly users to 19 million.

SMS revenue which continues to face competition from other alternatives apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook messenger among others saw a decline of 3.7 percent to 16.7 billion shillings.