This archive report was first published on 23 December 2019.
December 23, 2019
Telecoms giant Vodafone is planning to expand its highly successful M-Pesa mobile payments service across sub-Saharan Africa, a move that is likely to be met with stiff competition from other telecoms companies.
According to an interview with Nick Read, Vodafone's chief executive, the company believes it has the edge in the market.
'I believe we can turn (M-Pesa) into Africa's largest unbanked bank,' Mr Read told the Financial Times.
M-Pesa currently accounts for 3.5 per cent of revenue at Vodacom and is worth around $1.5 billion. The service operates in seven sub-Saharan African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
Its most important operation is in Kenya, where two in five Kenyans use it, and it currently processes around a quarter of Kenya's total GDP, according to Joshua Oigara, head of the KCB, a partner for Safaricom.
However, Vodafone's plans will not go unchallenged, with South Africa's MTN, France's Orange, and India's Airtel all having launched rival payments services. There are already around 140 mobile money services across sub-Saharan Africa.
But M-Pesa is the one to beat, with a rapidly expanding market and an estimated 10 billion euros ($10.1 billion) worth of transactions processed every month.
