Vodafone said its mobile money platform M-Pesa has 50 million monthly active customers.
M-Pesa, which was launched 14 years ago in Kenya, is today available in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Ghana and Egypt, Vodafone said in a statement.
The number of active M-Pesa customers has doubled in the past five years. The milestone also comes just 18 months after Safaricom and Vodacom launched the M-Pesa Africa joint venture to accelerate growth of the service across the continent.
M-Pesa became an even more important platform for customers during the pandemic with transaction volumes increasing 44 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the current financial year. The number of transactions grew to 4.5 billion in the quarter – with a total transaction value of €63 billion.
“M-Pesa has helped millions of people to access financial services for the first time and millions more to improve their lives, start businesses and gain control of their finances. We are still in the early stages of M-Pesa’s development and will continue to invest to capture this significant opportunity – building value for shareholders,” Nick Read, CEO of Vodafone Group, said.
“We celebrate this remarkable milestone with our more than 50 million customers across the African continent,” said Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Managing Director – M-Pesa Africa.
In 2007, Safaricom and Vodafone launched M-Pesa in Kenya for customers to instantly send money to each other.
