13.4 Million Customers Outside Kenya Subscribed to M-Pesa

The number of customers using Safaricom’s M-Pesa outside Kenya was at 13.4 million subscribers as of December 2018, a 227,000 increase.

According to Vodacom Group Limited, the expansion on the number of M-Pesa users outside Kenya is proof of the popularity of the mobile money service in a number of other African countries.

This was revealed during the Group’s trading update for the quarter that ended December 31, 2018, which showed that a total of 6.28 billion shillings was made as M-Pesa revenue from Tanzania, DR Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho markets; a 30.3 percent increase in revenue from the previous quarter.

M-Pesa now contributes 16.4 percent of Vodacom’s service revenue, an improvement attributed to growing ecosystems across the four markets.

On average, 237 million transactions were processed monthly through the M-Pesa system, growing at 24.2 percent year-on-year.

The growth of M-Pesa also helped push up Vodacom’s service revenues of operations outside South Africa and Kenya by 13.2 percent. Excluding South Africa and Kenya, the rest of markets contribute 27.5 percent of the group’s service revenue.

In Mozambique, Vodacom managed to expand its interoperability of the service to a third bank, helping to widen the M-Pesa ecosystem for its customers.

Vodacom’s 30-day active M-Pesa customers have grown by 20.6 percent to 13.41 million, up from 11.1 million a year earlier.

Growth has been fastest in Lesotho (46.4 percent) followed by DRC (40 percent) and Mozambique at 29.8 percent.

Vodacom Tanzania says in its latest trading update for the quarter ended 31 December 2018 that its M-Pesa customers rose by 10.0 percent to 6.9 million, representing 49 percent of its customer base.

Safaricom earned 62.9 billion shillings as revenue from M-Pesa business in Kenya in its fiscal year that ended March 2018, is 28 percent of total business revenue.

ALSO READ:

Fuliza: Reason To Buy More Shares in Safaricom and Take A Long Term Position On The NSE; Credit Access Made Easy

Safaricom’s M-Pesa Goes Global: You can now Send and Receive Money Across the World