Safaricom PLC

Safaricom PLC is Kenya’s largest mobile network operator and, through its Skiza ring back tune service, one of the largest paid channels for recorded music in the country. Skiza launched in 2009. Subscribers pay a small daily fee to replace the ring their callers hear with a licensed music clip, and Safaricom has stated that it charges Sh1 a day for Skiza and Sh1.50 a day for MySkiza.

Safaricom does not license that music directly from artists. Its own newsroom account states that it contracted premium rate service providers when it started Skiza, “stating that the content providers obtain all rights when giving content to the telco”, and that royalties were paid first to collective management organisations and, after a 2017 court ruling, to content service providers who in turn pay the musicians. Kenyan court records name Xpedia Management Limited, Liberty Afrika Technologies Limited, Cellulant Limited and Mtech Limited among the intermediaries in that chain.

Section 30C of the Copyright Act, inserted by the Copyright (Amendment) Act No. 14 of 2022, requires the telecommunications operator to remit the artist’s share of ring back tune revenue directly to the artist or copyright owner. As of the High Court’s ruling of 5 March 2026, that direct remittance had not replaced the intermediary chain. Safaricom told the court it “is still compliant with the law and is actively looking to comply with the law” and that it continues to pay out the ring back tune net revenue share while it awaits an artist database from the Kenya Copyright Board.

The company is named in Kenyan court records as Safaricom Limited in pleadings filed from 2016 to 2024 and as Safaricom PLC in the 2026 ruling.