The number of M-Pesa users enrolled by Safaricom’s Ethiopia unit has nearly tripled in four months to 3.1 million with Sh18.5 billion worth of transactions, offering hope for success in the populous country.

The latest quarterly update showed that Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia closed in December 2023 with 3.1 million M-Pesa users.

Safaricom’s Ethiopia subsidiary launched the mobile money service on August 15 last year.

“We are very pleased with the optimism that M-Pesa has evoked in the youthful population of Ethiopia, and we look forward with great excitement to the transformation M-Pesa will bring to financial inclusion in Ethiopia,” said Safaricom chief executive Peter Ndegwa.

At 3.1 million, Safaricom’s subsidiary in Ethiopia has nearly tripled its mobile money customer base given that it had 1.2 million users at the end of September. The increased usage has also seen the value of transactions rise over six times to Sh18.5 billion from Sh3 billion at the close of September.

The Ethiopia unit has increased active M-Pesa merchants from 12,400 at the end of September to 43,100 at the end of December, coming in the period the volume of transactions more than quadrupled from two million to 9.2 million.

The increased M-Pesa usage earned the Ethiopia unit Sh44.9 million as revenue in the period between mid-August and the end of December, to overtake messaging service which earned the telco Sh28.2 million in nine months ended December.