Mobile Money platforms are at their peak in Kenya with a report from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) indicating that Kenyans transacted 4.13 trillion shillings via mobile in 2019, a rise by 361.39 billion shillings from 2018.
On average, Kenyans transacted 496,250 shillings per hour or 11.91 billion shillings per hour. In 2019, according to the CBK, Kenyans transacted 46.15 percent of Kenya’s GDP via mobile phones.
In 2018, Kenyans transacted 3.98 trillion shillings on mobile, 48.82 percent of Kenya’s GDP. Mobile Money platforms such as M-PESA have gained momentum in Kenya as Kenyan’s increasingly move away from traditional banking and transactions.
For the month of December 2019, Kenyans opened at least 10.7 million mobile money accounts, bringing the total number of mobile money accounts in Kenya to 58.36 million. Mobile money transfers for the month of December hit 382.93 billion shillings, an increase of 23.67 billion shillings.
The latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that as of December 2018, Kenya had 31.6 million active users of mobile money transfer services. Safaricom’s M-Pesa was the market leader with 25.57 million users, followed by Airtel with 3.77 million users.
In 2018, a total of 3.98 trillion shillings was moved via mobile in 2018, a 10 percent (or 346 billion shillings) increase from what was recorded in 2017.
Kenyans transacted 10.92 billion shillings per day via mobile in 2018 with M-Pesa taking the lion’s share of the transactions.
The mobile money transactions in 2018 were equivalent to 44 percent of Kenya’s GDP. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had projected that Kenya’s economy would stand at 9.09 trillion shillings in 2018.