Kenya’s number of mobile money transfer agents has grown 10.6% to stand at 103,660.

This is according to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), which on Monday released quarterly statistics for the period January to March 2014.

But the number of additional mobile money agents has come about in an almost flat market.

According to the CA, the number of mobile money subscriptions in the country grew just 0.9% compared to the previous quarter from 26 million to 26.2 million.

The CA; though, notes that “when compared to the same quarter of the previous
year, a 10.1% increase was recorded” as the country had 23,269,610 mobile money subscriptions in March 2013.

“In the same way, the number of agents rose by 10.6% to reach 103,660 agents up from 93,689 agents during the previous quarter,” says the CA.

“In relation to the same period of the previous year, a 19.1% growth was registered,” adds the CA regarding the number of mobile money agents in Kenya.

The rise in Kenya’s number of mobile money agents comes as Airtel has this month won a battle to compel Safaricom to open up its M-Pesa agent network.

The move means that agents will have more choice regarding what mobile money services they can sell.

Other African countries such as Zimbabwe’s central bank have also forced mobile networks to allow all agents to sell any services such as EcoCash and Telecash.