Safaricom Set To Launch M-Pesa Services In Ethiopia

Safaricom is gearing up to launch M-Pesa mobile money transfer service in Ethiopia as the company’s operations take root in one of Africa’s lucrative economies, just four months after the government in Addis Ababa promised to issue it with a license.

Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC CEO, Anwar Soussa, said Safaricom Ethiopia is putting final touches on launching M-Pesa in the horn of Africa market any time from April this year. “We are finalizing our commercial and technical readiness and we expect to launch operations within the upcoming financial year,” he added.

Safaricom’s financial year runs from April to March. This will make Safaricom the first foreign company to launch mobile money services in the Horn of Africa nation. Safaricom Ethiopia started operations on 6th October 2022 when switched on its mobile telecommunications network and services in Addis Ababa, the country’s capital city.

Mr Soussa said this when he shared insights on the opportunities for the company’s growth in Ethiopia, leveraging on innovation and its quality of services, including internet connectivity, during the Safaricom Investors Day held on 17th February 2023 in Nairobi. “Our growth trajectory is even more exciting for us as we look forward to offering financial services through M-PESA,” he said.

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With a population of approximately 120 million people and financial inclusion at about 35%, 57% mobile penetration and annual inward remittance of about $4.2 billion, Ethiopia offers a great opportunity to grow the business to the Kenya level in 10 years,” Mr Anwar Soussa said.

Safaricom has grown its control of the mobile money market through M-Pesa to 99.9% in Kenya. Data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows that M-Pesa has expanded its share of the value of mobile money transactions in the last three years to hit Ksh2.206 trillion (99.9 percent) out of the total of Ksh2.208 trillion worth of transactions in 2021. Its growth has eaten into the market of Airtel Money and Telkom’s T-Kash

In his business update, Mr Anwar further noted that as of February 2023, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC had penetrated around 10% of the population translating to over 11 million people, had 847 network sites in 25 cities, had onboarded 28,000 retailers, 103 distributor shops and 5,000 acquisition agents.

The company had also crossed the 2 million mark in customer gross adds. Additionally, voice and data usage had averaged 64 minutes and 1.9 GB respectively per customer in a month.

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