East Africa’s popular telecomunication company Safaricom has posted a 37 percent rise in full-year pretax profit to 21.0 billion shillings.

The company has broken an earlier record, posting a radical growth of billions of shillings and dominating in voice and data communication in the region.

The rise surpasses the Sh15.3 billion recorded in the 2008 financial year by the company.

In 2009, turnover rose by 19.1 percent to Sh83.96 billion while net income grew 43.8 percent to Sh15.15 billion.

Releasing the results on Wednesday morning, Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said data service is the greatest growth opportunity in telecommunication.

The company is set to an increase in data revenues, which went up 72.9 percent in the past financial year and is expected to rise at a greater percentage in the following year. Telecom executives view data as the next big area of growth as the voice market matures.

“Data is where the opportunity lies in telecommunication. Less than 10 percent of Kenyans have access to Internet and we want to play a major part in growing that from 10 to 40 percent,” Mr Joseph said

Safaricom’s customer numbers improved 18 percent to 15.79 million in the year.

In addition to offering third-generation (3G) services, Safaricom runs a money transfer service, M-Pesa, which has been a big source of revenue.