Airtel Kenya. Photo | Courtesy.
Safaricom’s M-PESA lost its market share from 97 percent at the end 2023 down to 90.8 percent in Q1 2025 according to latest data from Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
On the other hand, Airtel Money’s market share continues to rise. Currently, Kenya’s second largest telco has gained a share of up to 9.1 percent in the same quarter.
The telco’s mobile money wing has grown rapidly thanks to its strategic market-capturing campaigns including lower transaction costs and fee refunds.
The growth has also been attributed to interoperability where M-PESA and Airtel Money allows users to send and receive money directly between the two platforms, regardless of which mobile network they use.
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The number of registered mobile money agents also rose by 5.5 percent to 417,000. With Mpesa leading with 299,000 agents. Despite this, Airtel remains the most threatening competitor to Mpesa.
Transacting with Airtel is cheaper compared to Safaricom. To send Sh1,000 to other networks costs Sh13 on Mpesa while Airtel Money charges Sh11. To withdraw the same amount on Airtel Money costs Sh25 while on Mpesa is Sh4 more.
While Safaricom Mpesa remains a dominant player in the mobile money sector, interoperability, which was implemented in 2022, has enabled Airtel Money users to send and receive money from any network thus reducing the need for both sender and receiver to own Airtel SIM cards and also its increasing number of agents countrywide.
With over 34 million users, Mpesa’s transaction clocks more than 30 billion transactions worth Sh38 trillion.
