The Kenyan government is considering a separation of the country's biggest telco, Safaricom, into three separate units.

As reported by Bloomberg, this could see the government reduce its 35 percent stake in the mobile carrier.

After an assessment, the government has reportedly found a "huge benefit" to the state if it chooses to split the company into a telecoms firm, a tower company, and its mobile payments platform M-Pesa.

TowerXchange noted in a report last year that Safaricom has around 7,400 towers in Kenya.

During an interview this week, John Mbadi, Kenyan treasury secretary, said a final plan to break up the company and for the government to reduce its stake would require cabinet approval.

"We are discussing whether to offload more shares as an entity or split them and then get the fresh valuation, and then get to that direction," said the minister.

Mbadi adds that separating the units would help the company to revalue the entire business.

Safaricom has close to 50 million mobile subscribers.

It was founded in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya, which then sold a 40 percent stake to UK telco Vodafone three years later. In 2017, Vodafone transferred 35 percent of its stake to South Africa-based Vodacom.

The Kenyan government said in May that it planned to sell shares in the telco. At the time, ministers were hoping to raise 149 billion shillings ($1.16bn) in the 2025/26 financial year by selling shares in businesses including Safaricom.

Safaricom also has an Ethiopian unit, which it launched nearly three years ago as Ethiopia's government pushed for more privatization of its telecom networks.