Safaricom's M-Pesa customers up 60 percent

Monday 16 August 2010 | 09:50 AM CET

16 Aug 2010 - News The number of customers on Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom's money transfer service M-Pesa has grown by 60 percent to 11.89 million as of last month, from 7.4 million a year earlier. The amount of money the service has transferred since inception in 2007 reached KES 525.84 billion in the financial year ended July. Statistics released by the operator showed that the monthly average of money moved in the system has increased by 30 percent. The service facilitated the transfer of KES 33 billion last month, compared to KES 20 billion in July last year. The operator said M-Pesa agents grew to 19,500 during the year to July. Sister company Vodacom in South Africa is set to launch the M-Pesa service on 31 August. Meanwhile M-Kesho, a product launched by Safaricom in partnership with Equity in May, has been able to grow its customer base to 455,000. The operator said of these, only 176,000 are active customers.