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Two million more customers have joined Safaricom’s mobile money product, M-Pesa, since April, raising the number of users beyond 32 million. Active monthly M-Pesa users have risen from 30 million to 32 million, as more Kenyans adopt and enhance mobile money usage.

“During the reporting period (April 2021 to March 2022), our biggest innovation, M-Pesa, which celebrated 15 years also celebrated the 30 million customer mark- monthly active customers,” said Safaricom chief executive Peter Ndegwa.

“And I dare say that since then, we’ve seen another two million join the franchise.”

The franchise’s social impact, the CEO said, went by 14 per cent in the year to March 2022, hitting Sh275 billion.

The Telco is banking on the huge population in Ethiopia to add numbers to the platform, having been awarded the licence to set base there. The firms is set to launch mobile money services in the country where it unveiled services this month, and is looking to tap the second most populous country in the continent for rapid growth.

At least 2.5 million customers have downloaded MySafaricom App, which is a one-stop shop for the telco’s services, serving both pre-paid and post-paid customers. Safaricom noted that 50 per cent are using the app actively.

More Kenyans, the firm said, are using smartphones, with the number of its customers using the gadgets growing from 16.7 million to 18.5 million, between April 2021 and March 2022.

The number 4G-enabled smartphones among Safaricom users grew by 2.6 million to 11.1 million.