The share of Safaricom customers topping up their airtime through M-Pesa grew to 47 per cent of total airtime sales in the period compared to 42 per cent the previous year.
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the telco had reviewed its revenue share model to allow agents as well as Vodafone to earn from talk time sold via mobile money service M-Pesa.
The company said its airtime dealers are also diversifying to other products and services such as M-Pesa, selling devices and SIM cards, enterprise solutions such as Lipa na M-Pesa, and Internet connectivity
Safaricom #ticker:SCOM airtime dealers’ earnings are trailing those of M-Pesa agents as about half of the telco’s subscribers top up directly from the mobile money platform.
Scratch card sellers saw their take home cash increase 5.9 per cent to Sh11.4 billion, slower than the 20.9 per cent growth in commission earnings of Sh17.7 billion for M-Pesa agents in the year ended March.
The share of Safaricom customers topping up their airtime through M-Pesa grew to 47 per cent of total airtime sales in the period compared to 42 per cent the previous year.
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the telco had reviewed its revenue share model to allow agents as well as Vodafone to earn from talk time sold via mobile money service M-Pesa. The company said its airtime dealers are also diversifying to other products and services such as M-Pesa, selling devices and SIM cards, enterprise solutions such as Lipa na M-Pesa, and Internet connectivity to cushion their earnings.
“Our residual commission structure also allows dealers to earn commissions from airtime sold through M-Pesa,” Mr Collymore told the Business Daily. “Today, many of our agents have diversified their services to become M-Pesa agents and super agents, which means they are eligible to earn revenue through these channels.”
Safaricom pays its airtime dealers and retailers a commission based on the value of scratch cards sold.
Previously, direct airtime purchases made from M-Pesa did not attract any sales charges, but this model was reviewed effective August 2015 to compensate mobile money dealers and parent firm Vodafone.
Safaricom distributes airtime vouchers countrywide through 400 dealers, more than 1,900 outlets, and 45 company-owned shops.
The telco reckons that airtime top-ups via mobile money also help lower costs associated with printing, distributing and recruiting resellers for scratch cards.
Despite the double-digit growth in M-Pesa agents’ commission, the more than tripling of the number of these middlemen in the last five years to the current 130,000 agents as also meant the average take home per agent is dwindling.
“The decrease is due to the fact that many of the new agents are smaller sub-agents and are spread out, including in areas with comparatively lower economic activity,” Safaricom said.
