Issued by: Wimbart
M-KOPA, a leading emerging markets fintech, has announced that it has surpassed 5 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. Two million of these customers have come on board in the last 15 months.
M-KOPA’s innovative model makes affordable smartphones with embedded financial services available to ‘every day earners’: the vast majority of African adults who earn an income on a daily basis, but struggle to afford a smartphone and typically do not qualify for traditional financial services. According to the World Bank, 75 per cent of adults in sub-Saharan Africa remain financially excluded. To date, M-KOPA has supported its customer base with more than US$1.5bn in financing.
Starting with smartphone access, customers gain access to the digital economy with an affordable daily repayment model that fits their daily income and cash flow and is easier to manage. Leveraging rich payment data and proprietary AI-driven analytics, M-KOPA builds a credit history for each customer, laying the foundation for a long-term financial relationship for low-cost digital loans, affordable data subscriptions, and health insurance.
Jesse Moore, co-founder and CEO of M-KOPA, said: “We are thrilled to welcome our 5 millionth customer to M-KOPA this month. The scale of our operations and our positive impact on customers is what keeps us working hard to go even further. We’re just getting started; the opportunity for much larger impact and scale is right in front of us.”
M-KOPA also released its 2024 Impact Report this week, in which the company annually discloses its progress against key social and environmental impact metrics. As with previous reports, the 2024 survey of M-KOPA’s customers was conducted by an external company — Dalberg Research.
Key impact highlights from the 2024 report include:
- 92 per cent confirm that M-KOPA’s financing has made technology more affordable
- 80 per cent of customers report an improved quality of life thanks to M-KOPA’s products
- 70 credit credit M-KOPA with helping them achieve their financial goals, demonstrating the company’s contribution to financial empowerment
- 62 per cent use their M-KOPA product to generate income.
The company is having a major impact on improving digital access in Africa. Nearly two million customers are first-time mobile internet users and 40 per cent are women. M-KOPA also built the first and largest smartphone assembly factory in Kenya – which has produced more than one million phones locally, further reducing the cost of access.
As with previous reports, M-KOPA’s board and management use the annual impact report to help shape the company’s future strategy. Based on this year’s findings, M-KOPA is working to further increase its female customer base to 50 per cent, reduce its carbon footprint by embedding circularity at the heart of its smartphone supply chain, and continue to pioneer green products such as electric motorcycles that contribute to the health and sustainability of the communities in which it operates.
M-KOPA’s Chief Product Officer Nena Sanderson, notes: “Our products and services build pathways to prosperity for our customers and agents, enabling them to overcome financial setbacks, generate income and progress towards the futures they aspire to. Our impact extends beyond our customers, reaching their families and communities, and contributing to building a more sustainable world.”
Headquartered in London, UK, M-KOPA now employs more than 3,000 staff and 30,000 commission-based agents in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. The company has been recognised by the Financial Times as one of Africa’s fastest growing companies for the past three years, and by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential companies for the past two years.
To read the full report, download it here: M-KOPA Impact Report 2024 — Pathways to Progress
