The GSMA recently released its State of the Industry Mobile Money Report, looking at how the sector has grown in the past year. Mobile money has of course been one of the major success stories for the industry in emerging markets, and we’ve certainly found in the past that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Last year, the mobile money industry processed over $1.68 trillion in transactions, and with volumes growing at about 20% compared to values at 16%. Use is therefore clearly increasing, and growth is high, but the volume side is outpacing that of the value. There was also significant growth in the agent network, with 28 million registered mobile money agents – an increase of 20% over 2023. The bulk of this growth came from Sub-Saharan Africa, but there was also growth in South Asia and East Asia/Pacific.

Mobile money has a demonstrable impact on GDP, having contributed US$720 billion in GDP globally between 2013 and 2023, a 1.7% increase; again, Sub-Saharan Africa was a major beneficiary of this, with mobile money contributing upwards of 5-6% towards GDP depending on the country. Additionally, adjacent services are now a major element of the offering – nearly half of survey respondents said they offered digital credit, and around 34% of mobile money providers offer savings products now. Insurance is trailing behind at 28%, but it is increasing.

Ashely Olson Onyango, Head of Financial Inclusion and AgriTech at GSMA, notes that the report details the mobile money gender gap across several markets, with 8 of 12 focus countries still reporting a significant gender gap in mobile money account ownership. While in Sub-Saharan African, usage tend to be on par – Kenya and Tanzania have a very small discrepancy of around 1% – there are significantly larger gender gaps in markets such as Pakistan, Ethiopia and Egypt. These markets have overall lower penetration rates for mobile money – hovering near 60% – and so driving awareness and increasing adoption will likely help to narrow this gap, but there are other cultural factors in play.

Barriers to adoption

“The first is mobile ownership – if you don’t have a mobile phone, you can’t own a mobile money account”, says Olson Onyango. “Then it’s awareness… then it’s adoption, and then it’s usage. Each one of those, you can see in countries where there’s lower mobile ownership, then adoption is going to be lower as well. A lot of this is societal, cultural norms, but there’s a lot of other issues that are driving this. Women’s financial literacy, digital and financial literacy tend to be lower than men’s. They tend to perceive their relevance of mobile money to be less for them. There’s a lot of behavioural aspects around that lower adoption and those wider gender gaps.”

She notes that societal norms around women’s roles in financial decision-making are also likely to play a part, particularly in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan and Egypt. However, Ash Robinson, a Research Analyst at ABI Research, argues that the lower gender gap in Sub-Saharan Africa may simply be due to mobile banking being the sole option.

“Most people in this region did not use traditional banking beforehand, with cash being more prevalent that card payments. This has led to a similar payment environment to that of Southeast Asia with mobile payments skipping the usual escalation [cash to card to mobile payments]” and instead going straight from cash to mobile payments.

“This combined with a high smartphone install base has led to mobile payments being the preferred way to pay in the region”, notes Robinson.

Legitimising the sector

The growth of mobile money has been spurred by recognition of its legitimacy – major companies such as Visa and Mastercard partner with mobile money providers, lending recognition and trust as well as financing. Robinson notes that in addition to providing services with stability and innovation, strategic partnerships provide an important credibility factor that helps drive consumer use. “By Visa and MasterCard effectively saying we trust these platforms enough to invest and partner them, it signals to consumers and investors that this is a company they can trust.”

“In 2019, we saw MasterCard invest in Airtel money – that was a big moment, and since then we’ve seen a lot more” says Olson Onyango. “MasterCard also invests in Airtel money and MTN Momo, but then they have a lot of strategic partnerships with Safaricom, UPaisa  and Jazz Cash in Pakistan. These partnerships are catalytic; the investment is one thing that allows growth innovation driving that mobile money business. The strategic partnerships also are also… bringing virtual and digital cards to consumers, building the relevant side of it and trying to expand what’s possible with a mobile money account.”

“Visa has driven strategic partnerships with Safaricom in Kenya and Telenor in Pakistan, and these have slowly been formalising over the last several years. In 2024 MasterCard announced four [partnerships], which was massive – every year before that, it was one or two. We keep seeing more of that as a way for them to diversify their user base, particularly in markets where physical cards don’t really have much of a penetration and adoption. This is a way for MasterCard or Visa to come in and build a user base through the mobile money providers.”

Securing the bag

Security is another area where this kind of co-operation has a huge impact – in a sense helping to legitimise mobile money services. Robinson reiterates that companies like Visa and Mastercard provide a solution with a sense of stability, citing the example of GCash in the Philippines, which saw $786 million in investments from MUFG and Ayala Cooperation each contributing $386 million. This investment helped steady GCash’s position, which had been tumultuous in 2023; several cases of fraud led to a fall in user numbers and a significant drop in stock price. Since the investment, GCash stock has steadied and is on the rise again.

“Security is obviously still a big concern” says Olson Onyango. “We saw this when mobile money providers started to open up their platforms to open APIs, and seeing the infiltration of third-party service providers. You saw cases where a third-party service provider was hacked, and then all that data was exposed from the mobile money providers – there is a lot of concern around that.” The global standards of security and systems offered by partners such as MasterCard and Visa can support and enhance offerings from operator groups in emerging markets such as Airtel or MTN, delivering significant value around the security side.

In terms of regional growth trends, East Africa is certainly maturing from an adoption viewpoint. The next steps will be to see new and pervasive innovation to drive usage and increase the breadth of what people are using mobile money for, and thereby driving volumes. Merchant payments are a critical indicator to see the digitalisation of cash – when people use mobile money more frequently for much smaller amounts, it shows that it’s becoming more relevant in their day to day. In West Africa, there has been impressive growth in adoption since COVID, but North Africa has been less of a contributor to the mobile money scene globally, representing a fairly small percentage in relation. However, Olson Onyango notes that the growth rates in this region are very impressive – around 44% compared to 12% in East Africa.

“Even though it’s coming in at a much later stage, when people are adopting it, they’re actually using it a lot more, they’re transacting a lot more. It’ll be interesting to see what that means for those markets, why they’re using it at those higher levels, and how other markets might be able to learn from that as well. Regulation has come in to support that innovation side… smartphone penetration is higher in North Africa than Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The GSMA Report highlights some of the innovation in East Asia/Pacific and South Asia; mobile money is growing strongly in these regions, and much of this is fintech-driven. The regulation has supported this, with mobile money providers essentially becoming fully licensed banks, allowing them to offer credit and savings products. There are fewer MNO-led mobile money providers; since this sector was viewed more as digital wallets and fintechs in this region, their evolution has followed this path towards becoming more of a digital bank, as opposed to harnessing that scale from the mobile network operator. This reflects the different priorities of the region; ultimately, in Africa the real need was to provide financial accounts and enable basic transactions that were previously unavailable.

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa has pledged to elevate the company’s mobile money platform, M-Pesa, into its next phase-emphasising the need for stronger cybersecurity and uninterrupted service.

Speaking about the upcoming M-Pesa 2.0, Ndegwa said the upgrade would be rolled out within the next 6 to 12 months, citing an urgent need to “keep ahead of the crooks” attempting to breach their systems.

He added that the upgrade would come with a major shift in reliability, claiming there would be zero downtime during deployment. In contrast, earlier versions of M-Pesa – such as those introduced in 2021 – often required full system outages, with customers unable to transact and banking partners forced to suspend services for several days due to tight integration with the platform.

Currently, downtime during updates averages around 10 minutes, but Safaricom aims to carry out future upgrades without taking the platform offline.

A central focus of the upcoming update will be cybersecurity resilience. Ndegwa explained that making M-Pesa safer “requires a lot of investment, as the core needs to be ring-fenced.” He also noted that Safaricom mobile sites typically have a backup site in place to minimise the impact of any unexpected outages. However, having backup infrastructure also introduces an additional entry point that must be defended against potential cyber threats, adding complexity to the company’s security strategy.

Safaricom currently invests US$300,000 annually in maintaining and updating M-Pesa, which had over 60 million users as of the company’s financial year ending 31 March 2024.

Service provider MTN has officially concluded its operations in Afghanistan, transferring its stake to the Beirut-based M1 Group. The company will now operate under the brand name ATOMA.

At a formal handover ceremony, Najibullah Haqqani, the Taliban’s Minister of Telecommunications and Technology, announced that MTN’s shares had been acquired by M1 Group for an undisclosed multi-million-dollar sum.

In November 2022 we reported that MTN Group had named Lebanon’s M1 New Ventures as the buyer of its Afghan unit. At the time news outlets suggested that M1 was set to acquire MTN Afghanistan for US$35 million.

MTN, which began operations in Afghanistan in 2007, held a 40% share of the market and was the country’s largest mobile operator.

MTN’s strategic decision aligns with its long-term goal to concentrate on African markets. MTN first announced plans to exit the Middle East in August 2020. Indeed this exit follows announcements of planned withdrawals by MTN from Syria in August 2021 and Yemen soon after. MTN’s only remaining presence in the region is a 49% stake in Irancell, its joint venture in Iran.

At the ceremony Haqqani called on ATOMA to deliver high-quality services, honour its licence obligations, and prioritise consumer rights. Hashim Ramazan, the newly appointed CEO of ATOMA, pledged to modernise the company’s network infrastructure, improve 4G services, and provide reliable, high-quality voice and internet connectivity across the country.

Despite the rebranding, ATOMA has assured customers that services will continue uninterrupted, with a focus on improving user experience and expanding coverage in rural areas.

Sam George, Ghana’s Minister Of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, is widely reported to have set what is described as a firm deadline of June 2025 for the Next Generation Infrastructure Company (NGIC) to launch 5G services in the West African country. But will it be met?

Ghana’s government announced in August 2023 that it did not plan to auction 5G spectrum but would establish NGIC, a « neutral shared infrastructure company », to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G services.

In November 2024, NGIC announced its readiness to collaborate with operators and internet service providers (ISPs) to launch 5G services. It apparently claimed  that operators MTN Ghana, Airtel Ghana and Telecel would roll out the services to their customers before the end of 2024 in the cities of Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi.  

However, the rollout deadlines have been repeatedly postponed. In January 2025 we reported that Sam George’s predecessor, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, said that deploying 5G services depended on operators purchasing the necessary capacity and providing it to their customers. This does not appear to have happened.

A May deadline to deliver 5G services is not going to be met. Sam George has said that if a new deadline of June 2025 is missed, renegotiations will be on the table. At the moment NGIC has an exclusive right to offer 5G services in Ghana for a decade.

It’s hard to tell why this has happened. While operators may have been slow to sign up, there don’t appear to be a lot of sites available yet. News services say NGIC boasts 16 5G-ready cell sites, with its core network successfully inspected by the National Communications Authority (NCA). However, according to George, NGIC has promised 350 cell sites by June this year, 50 of them 5G-capable, with 200-250 sites focused on Accra and 100-150 sites in Kumasi.

Even if this target is met, 5G demand is not guaranteed. Many sources quote market research company Omdia, which estimates that 8.2 million of MTN Ghana’s 29 million subscribers were on 4G at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 but only 445,000 subscribers of Telecel Ghana’s almost 6.5 million subscribers were on 4G in the same period. Many other subscribers are still using 3G.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Jamie Dobson, founder of Container Solutions and author of ‘The Cloud Native Attitude’

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Payment and connectivity services company IDEMIA Secure Transactions (IST) and National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) have announced a strategic partnership to boost the digital payment landscape in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese domestic scheme will integrate IST’s Token Platform into its extensive network reaching over 40 banks, and empowering the Vietnamese payment community with a more streamlined and user-friendly payment experience. With its newly acquired digital capabilities, says IST, NAPAS will be able to meet the rising demand from the Vietnamese population for contactless and digital payments.

IST points out that a large portion of Vietnam’s population is under 35 years old and possesses multiple smartphones. As more consumers in this demographic pivot towards digital services, there is, says IST, a critical need for modern, secure, and convenient payment options that align with their expectations across the Asia Pacific region.

The IST Token Platform empowers payment networks to seamlessly transition their affiliated issuers to digital payment solutions. It securely replaces sensitive card information with a unique identifier, or token, that can be used for transactions without exposing actual card details.

The agnostic Token Platform caters to a wide range of use cases, including mobile NFC payments, in-app purchases, and remote and peer-to-peer transactions. IST’s solution can be easily integrated through a set of APIs, facilitating communication with various stakeholders in the digital payment ecosystem: token requestors (merchants using card-on-file methods), global xPay wallets, and participating issuers.

Through this partnership, says IST, NAPAS will be able to offer in-store payments via smartphone, using the bank’s mobile wallet for Android smartphones and Apple Pay for iOS devices. Furthermore, the Vietnamese community will be able to make e-commerce purchases using in-app payments.

IST adds that this new, modern way to pay eliminates the need for QR codes or cash, boosting contactless payments and making the experience more convenient and secure for end-users.

Unitel has expanded its mobile network in the municipality of Cachingues to enhance voice and data services delivered over its 3G and 4G infrastructure.

The upgrade was implemented in Bié province, and the operator emphasised that this is just one part of a wider network development strategy, with further deployments planned beyond the area.

According to Unitel, its 2G network now reaches 100% of Angola’s 164 municipalities and 54.7% of its communes. Meanwhile, 3G coverage extends to 96.3% of municipalities and 47.1% of communes.

The company’s 4G service, which delivers faster speeds and improved communication quality, is available in 80.5% of municipalities and 35.9% of communes. However, 5G coverage remains limited, currently reaching just 6.7% of municipalities and 2.8% of communes.

Unitel stated that its ongoing priority is to raise service quality, deliver superior customer experiences, and further strengthen its leadership position in Angola’s telecommunications market.

The global smartphone market recorded just 1% growth year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, with persistent macroeconomic pressures continuing to weigh on consumer demand, according to analyst firm Canalys.

Samsung led the market with a 20% share, followed by Apple at 18%. Xiaomi held onto third place with 14%, maintaining its spot among the top three vendors. Chinese manufacturers vivo and Oppo rounded out the top five, each claiming 8% of the market.

Amber Liu, Research Manager at Canalys, described the market as “more volatile than anticipated” in the first quarter, despite expectations of continued recovery.

“Vendors entered 2025 with momentum after a strong end to 2024, pushing large volumes of stock into the channel in an effort to capture market share. However, slower-than-expected sales at the consumer level have led to extended inventory cycles and weakened momentum in early 2025,” Liu explained. “Unlike last year’s rebound, which was driven by post-pandemic upgrades and affordable mass-market devices, this year’s recovery appears much more fragile.”

Liu also warned of further headwinds for vendors due to planned tariff increases by the US government.

“In the US, major players like Apple, Samsung and Lenovo are already facing sluggish domestic demand, and the threat of rising operational costs due to upcoming tariffs,” she said. “Apple responded by advancing its Q2 shipments into early April to stay ahead of potential cost increases.”

Globally, the full extent and timing of the new tariffs remain unclear, but manufacturers are bracing for increased component costs and weaker export demand in key markets.

In response, Liu said vendors and supply chain partners are ramping up efforts to diversify their operations – shifting manufacturing hubs, revisiting sourcing strategies, and refining logistics processes.

“These shifts are likely to pressure margins and extend decision-making timelines across the global smartphone industry throughout 2025,” she concluded.

A bit of data center M&A, two expansion projects, an upgrade, and some R&D news: … [visit site to read more]