Safaricom plans to launch savings and credit products in Ethiopia, hoping to boost earnings from M-PESA, its mobile money platform, which has struggled to gain traction nearly two years after launch.
Since its rollout in August 2023, M-PESA has yet to make a meaningful financial contribution to its Ethiopian operations, according to numbers shared by the telco during its earnings call on Friday. The service faces stiff competition from Ethio Telecom’s Telebirr, which had nearly 51.5 million subscribers as of February 2025.
“M-PESA is evolving into a full mobile financial platform, starting with payments for utilities, with plans to introduce credit and savings,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa. Ndegwa did not share a timeline for the roll-out.
It’s a different story in Kenya, where M-PESA is a major part of Safaricom’s financial services business, which now accounts for 44.2% of total service revenue. Connectivity remains the top driver at 50.8%, but M-PESA’s contribution is significant, with over 35 million customers using the service.
Safaricom’s Ethiopian arm is smaller, but growing. However, despite signing up 2.4 million M-PESA customers and earning KES 8.89 billion ($68.9 million) in service revenue, just KES 410 million ($3.2 million) came from a mix of messaging, wholesale, fixed line, and M-PESA.
Safaricom Ethiopia and its partners invested $850 million (KES 109.75 billion) for a telecom licence, then another $150 million (KES 19.37 billion) for the M-PESA licence. The venture is led by Vodafamily Ethiopia Holding, which owns 61.9%: Safaricom PLC controls 55.71%, while Vodacom Group holds 6.19%. Sumitomo Corporation owns 27.2% and CDC Group holds 10.9%.
Ethiopia is opening up its financial sector, and Safaricom is betting this will pay off. The country licenced its first two investment banks in April 2025 and launched its securities exchange two months earlier.
“Ethiopia has made progress in addressing external imbalances and improving the business climate. In March 2025, the regulator licenced the first two investment banks following financial sector reforms, including the Ethiopian Securities Exchange launch in January 2025,” Ndegwa said.
M-PESA in Ethiopia is mostly about utility payments. If Safaricom gets savings and credit off the ground, it could shift things.
