The uptake of M-Pesa across Kenya has contributed over half of revenue generated by Safaricom.

According to its latest annual report, the telco has signed up over three million businesses that use the M-Pesa service to receive and disburse payments.

In total there are 30.5 million M-Pesa customers on its network.

“Due to its various innovations, M-Pesa has substantially contributed to growth in formal financial inclusion across the countries in which we operate,” reads an excerpt from the report.

The company’s profit before tax stood at Kshs 102.2-billion with M-Pesa contributing Kshs 50-billion of the amount.

“Active customers grew 7.8% YoY to 30.53 million, with M-Pesa revenue growing 30.3% YoY to KShs 107.69 billion, it overtook voice to become the largest contributor of revenue, accounting for 38.3% of service revenue while voice contributed 29.6%,” the report stated.

M-Pesa’s reach into the market was boosted with the 63.4% increase in Lipa Na M-Pesa merchants to reach a total of just under 500,000.

Downloads for its Super App stood at 5.3 million while Business App downloads was recorded at 462,000 as of 31 March 2022.

Other solutions that have driven up demand and popularity of M-Pesa include M-Tiba, a medical payment application within the Safaricom app.

M-Tiba recorded 4.7 million users with 4,552 clinics having accepted its services.

Three hundred of the 5,000 government workflows also accepted M-Pesa payments, with 26 of the 47 counties in Kenya accepting payments made through the platform.

In total M-Pesa processed15.75 billion transactions valued at KShs 29.55-trillion, the report said.

Safaricom added, “Our strategy during the year under review has been to turbocharge M-PESA’s already impressive achievements by focusing on new products and services that include savings, wealth management and insurance.”

Safaricom has since added bus booking, insurance and a virtual Visa card service to the app.