Mpesa shop. Photo | courtesy
Kenya’s mobile money market has reached a saturation point as of June 2025, with total subscriptions hitting 47 million, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK). Safaricom’s M-Pesa slightly increased its market share to 90.9 percent,while Airtel Money held steady at 9.1 percent marking a pause in the competitive momentum that had defined the past three years.
This is the first time in six consecutive quarters that M-Pesa has regained ground, while Airtel’s subscriber momentum has stalled.
Back in June 2022, M-Pesa led with a commanding 96.8 percent market share, followed by Airtel Money at 3.1 percent . In 2023, M-Pesa maintained its dominance as Airtel slipped slightly. However, 2024 marked a turning point for Airtel, which crossed the 6 percent threshold by mid-year and climbed to nearly 9 percent by December. That growth has now leveled off.
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Airtel’s earlier gains were driven by strategic factors such as lower transaction fees, cashback promotions, and a 70 percent year-on-year expansion of its agent network. Interoperability reforms also made it easier for users to switch between mobile wallets. But with market penetration nearing saturation, further growth is proving harder to sustain without increasing usage depth per customer.
In response, Safaricom is investing Sh47.5 billion (US$309 million) to migrate M-Pesa to a cloud-native platform. The upgrade aims to improve reliability, reduce downtime, and support expansion into services such as digital lending and merchant payments.
