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Mobile internet in Ethiopia: two operators, two stories

Ethiopia had a long-standing state monopoly: Ethio Telecom was the only mobile operator, until Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC received a licence on 9 July 2021 and started commercial service in October 2022 — for a country this size, still an unusually young two-operator market. Ethio Telecom counted 87.1 million subscribers at the end of December 2025. Safaricom Ethiopia passed 15 million 90-day-active subscribers on 3 September 2026 — five years after its licence — growth that ran from 10 million in July 2025, through 13.6 million at end-March 2026 and 14.7 million at end-June 2026; in the final six months before that milestone, growth slowed to roughly 300,000 new subscribers. Safaricom runs on more than 3,500 sites (3,504 as of 31 March 2026).

On 4G, two separate figures exist that describe different things. Ethio Telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamiru announced an expansion partnership with Ericsson and ZTE on 3 September 2026 — 647 new sites, including 115 rural, across 52 additional cities — meant to bring 4G population coverage to 95%: a forward-looking target tied to one specific project, not a measured current state. Safaricom Ethiopia, for its part, reports 59.2% population coverage as of 31 March 2026, from its 3,504 sites. These two figures measure different things — one a target, the other a current state at a single operator — and we do not add or average them into one national percentage.

5G exists only at Ethio Telecom, across 340 sites, with an announced plan to double that to 648 sites across 73 towns by June 2027; today it covers Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar and Dire Dawa. Safaricom's sites are '5G-ready', but the regulator has not yet allocated it 5G spectrum, so no active Safaricom 5G service exists.

SIM registration in Ethiopia: what the directive says, word for word

Ethiopia's SIM Card Registration Directive No. 799/2021, issued by regulator ECA (under the Communications Service Proclamation No. 1148/2019), is one of the few genuinely primary sources in this research. Its scope article, Article 4(1), states, verbatim, that the directive applies to anyone buying a SIM from an Ethiopian operator and to anyone using a SIM issued and registered in Ethiopia, 'but shall not extend to users of SIM Cards issued by foreign Telecommunications Operators, notwithstanding those users who are roaming on the network of a Telecommunications Operator in Ethiopia'. That is the directive's own wording about its scope — we quote it as written, without drawing our own conclusion about what it means for any particular product, and without stating what obligations, if any, apply to a foreign provider itself.

Article 9 of the directive describes the identity checks for anyone who does register a local Ethiopian SIM: Ethiopian citizens present a residence ID card, driving licence or passport; foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin a passport or Ethiopian Origin ID Card; resident diplomats a passport and diplomatic ID card; non-diplomatic foreign residents a passport plus an employment letter or residence permit; and 'Visitors' (Article 9(d)) a valid passport, a local address and a contact phone number reachable during their visit. Article 8 lists the minimum registration data — name, nationality, date of birth, gender, address, a recent photograph, and 'biometric data, if available' — with that last item conditional, not a hard requirement for every registration.

Roaming in Ethiopia without an eSIM

Ethiopia is outside the EU and the EEA, so 'Roam Like at Home' does not apply. That arrangement covers the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and, since 1 January 2026, Moldova and Ukraine; Ethiopia is not among them. Your Belgian or Dutch bundle therefore stays behind: your operator bills every megabyte at its own out-of-bundle roaming tariff, without the EU price caps that apply inside the zone. The European Commission advises checking that tariff with your provider before you go.