![[Africa Tech Review] Nixon Kanali: Safaricom’s mobile money service M-Pesa revenue hit Ksh.107.69 Billion](Images/Key Persons/Nixon_Kanali_.jpeg)
[Africa Tech Review] Nixon Kanali: Safaricom’s mobile money service M-Pesa revenue hit Ksh.107.69 Billion
Kenya’s leading telco Safaricom has been all over the news this week. The company announced that will commercially launch its operations in Ethiopia within the year. The company made this announcement while announcing its Full Year 2021/2022 results on Thursday.
In March, the telco announced that its mobile money service M-Pesa had crossed 30 million customers using the service every month in Kenya. At the same time, the service marked 15 years since Safaricom and Vodafone launched it in March 2007. According to the results released this week, M-Pesa revenue grew by 30.3% to hit Ksh. 107.69 Billion making it one of the biggest contributors to Safaricom's net profits.
Safaricom was not the only African telco in the news this week. In South Africa, Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) announced that effective 1 May 2022, its two fibre network assets would be managed under a new infrastructure company. In Ethiopia, Ethio telecom signed a business partnership agreement with seven national distributors which will exclusively distribute telecom products and services to the customers. The state-owned operator Ethio Telecom also launched its first 5G base stations in the nation's capital, Addis Ababa. Leading US data centre owner and developer, Flexential opened their US network to Angola Cables to assist customers in Africa in connecting to 40 key data centre hubs across the United States. Vodacom Group partnered with AFI to advance financial inclusion in Africa through systematic knowledge sharing with financial policymakers and regulators. In Tanzania, Airtel announced a new partnership with WorldRemit to enable Airtel Money customers to send and receive money directly into their Airtel Money wallets from abroad. Vodacom Group and the SADC Banking Association signed an MoU that will allow the Vodacom Group to join the South African Development Community’s Transactions Cleared on an Immediate Basis (TCIB) payment scheme while in Rwanda, MTN Rwandacell PLC (MTN Rwanda) released its first-quarter results for the period ended 31 March 2022 through the Rwanda Stock Exchange. Liquid Intelligent Technologies partnered with PEACE Cable Company to introduce 800Gbps of additional subsea capacity in Mombasa on the highly-anticipated global submarine cable.
We also highlighted a number of African startups this week. Mylerz, an Egyptian last-mile delivery and fulfillment innovation company closed a $9.6 million round. Nigerian health tech startup 54gene completed its initial phase of 100K genome project. TradeDepot, a B2B eCommerce and embedded finance platform in Africa appointed former Coca Cola HBC and Hayat Kimya Nigeria Executive, Chidi Akubuiro as its Managing Director for West Africa. Another Nigerian startup Metro Africa Xpress announced the successful issuance of a ₦400m 1-year fixed-rate notes (₦400m Series 1 Bond) under its newly structured ₦10bn/$22m Private Company Bond program (PCB Program). Still in Nigeria, financial services provider ARM launched ARM Sandbox, a new and more efficient way for fintechs to scale their integration and customer acquisition plans. Mastercard also launched Fintech Express in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), a program designed to facilitate emerging fintechs’ launch and expansion.
This week, US-based Growth equity firm Activant Capital also announced that it is expanding its research and due diligence capabilities with a new office in Cape Town, South Africa. FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) announced a $4.5million commitment to Funds to support MSMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, On-demand delivery startup Glovo created a Kibanda Bubble where Kibanda owners can sign up for free and start using the platform for orders.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), this week announced the deployment of an innovative new information service leveraging big xyt’s Liquidity Cockpit for security analytics. elev8 education, a leading global digital skilling and transformative education partner joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training Partner program.
Other top interesting highlights this week include UBA Kenya and Cellulant launching a payments gateway to accelerate the adoption of cashless payments. Vodacom Group appointing Sitho Mdlalose as Managing Director (MD) of Vodacom South Africa, effective 01 July 2022, NEAR Foundation launching a regional hub in Kenya dedicated to blockchain innovation and 4G Capital Group, Citi, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Ford Foundation have collaborating to expand financial inclusion through the provision of working capital to support the growth of micro-enterprises in Kenya.
Nixon Kanali is the Tech Editor for Africa Business Communities.
