Airtel headquarters along Mombasa Road, Nairobi.
Airtel Money’s market share in terms of subscription expanded to 7.6 per cent in the three months to September 2024, up from 6.6per cent in June, chipping into the base of rival Safaricom’s M-Pesa whose dominance shrunk to 92.3 per cent, down from 93.4 per cent.
Latest data from the industry regulator shows that M-Pesa’s share in terms of customer subscription is the lowest since the agency started making the disclosures in September 2022 when the market leader enjoyed a 96.8 percent share against Airtel Money’s 3.1 percent.
Airtel Money’s current growth is an extension of a trend observed during the 12-month period to June 2024 when the platform expanded its market share in the country from 2.8 per cent to 6.6 per cent, as M-Pesa’s thinned from 97.1 per cent to 93.4 per cent.
M-Pesa’s latest dip came during a period when the overall mobile money subscriptions in Kenya rose from 39.8 million in June to a record high of 40.6 million in September, translating to a penetration rate of 78.9 percent.
Registered mobile money agents, on the other hand, grew 5.1 per cent during the quarter to 365,432 from 347,699.
Airtel Money’s sustained expansion is a result of a concerted effort by Kenya’s second-largest telco to magnify the reach of its e-money offering which has in yesteryears been largely hampered by lack of adequate spread of agent networks.
Just last November, the telco inked a deal with supermarket chain Naivas that saw it gain access to the retailer’s expansive network of branches countrywide for use as Airtel Money agents.
In its statement at the time, Airtel said its mobile money customers would be able to deposit and draw cash across all Naivas branches within the country--a strategy it said was aimed at expanding its agent footprint to get closer to the customer.
Airtel Money’s expansion drive bagged its first major boost in 2023 after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) gave a regulatory nod to mobile money operators to increase daily transaction limits to Sh500,000 up from the previous limit of Sh300,000.
In February last year, Airtel moved to implement a transactional policy review that scrapped a code that forced customers on the Airtel Money platform to withdraw cash within a week of receipt or risk the money reverting to the sender.
“This development effected on February 6, 2024, comes in response to the CBK and industry players’ collaborative efforts to ensure seamless mobile money interoperability as outlined in the CBK National Payments Strategy 2022-2025,” said Airtel at the time.
