Safaricom added 500,000 new subscribers to its mobile money platform M-Pesa between October and November 2024 to hit 34 million users, marking a 1.5 percent jump from the 33.5 million active subscribers it had reported as of September.
With over 300,000 agents nationwide, the country’s largest mobile money transfer service has in recent months been battling to counter rival Airtel Money, which is spearheading an aggressive struggle to wrestle down its long-standing market dominance.
“We are immensely proud to reach 34 million M-Pesa customers in Kenya. This accomplishment underscores our dedication to deliver frictionless, always on, and secure financial services to our customers,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa while commenting on the new achievement.
“This milestone, a show of great trust by our customers, serves as a motivation to keep innovating and delivering value to our customers.”
During the year ended March 2024, Safaricom revenue from the mobile money platform jumped 19.4 percent to Sh139.9 billion up from Sh117.2 billion during a similar period the preceding year, making a 42.4 percent contribution to the telco’s overall service revenue.
The Central Bank of Kenya wants M-Pesa to be split from the telecoms business to enable more effective regulation of mobile financial services.
As of March this year, Safaricom reported that a total of 8,344 M-Pesa agents had closed down due to a new policy that now forces them to operate their businesses at a particular location all the time, leaving the dominant platform with 262,016 agents against Airtel Money’s current 90,000.
Latest regulatory data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that M-Pesa’s market share shrunk to 93.4 percent during the year to June 2024 down from 97.1 percent as of June 2023, at a time when Airtel Money’s more than doubled to 6.6 percent up from 2.8 percent during the period.
M-Pesa’s loosening grip came during a year when the overall mobile money subscriptions in the country jumped to 39.8 million up from 38 million in June last year, translating to a 77.3 mobile money penetration rate.
Safaricom completed the full acquisition of M-Pesa Holding Company Limited from its ultimate parent firm Vodafone Group PLC in October last year, finalising a process that had been initiated six months earlier.
