South African wireless network provider Vodacom said the company’s VodaPay app, which debuted in October, is the centerpiece of its quarterly growth for the three months ending Dec. 31, which saw its revenue jump 12.5% to 2 billion South African rand (about $131 million), according to a Tuesday (Feb. 1) press release.
Financial services remains a priority for Vodacom, the release stated.
“The group remains committed to focusing on the economic recovery in markets where we operate through the execution of a purpose-led six-point plan,” said Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub in the release. “This plan includes expanding network coverage and resilience, accelerating support to governments, enhancing digital accessibility and digital adoption, supporting our customers as they adapt to new ways of working and promoting financial inclusion.”
VodaPay has been downloaded 1.4 million times since its debut in October and it has 1 million registered users, according to the release.
“Our M-Pesa platform, including Safaricom, continues to scale at an impressive rate with transaction values up 16.1% …,” Joosub said in the release. “… We see VodaPay as a precursor to M-Pesa’s evolution and further strengthening our FinTech position across our footprint.”
The group’s overall revenue grew 6.4% to 26.7 billion rand (about $1.7 billion) in the quarter, led by the company’s service revenue growth of 5.3% to 20.7 billion rand (about $1.3 billion) because of the continuous demand for connectivity and growth in new services, including financial and digital offerings, such as the VodaPay app, the release stated.
In April, wireless service provider MTN Group and a consortium headed by Vodafone Group submitted bids for a license in Ethiopia.
Read more: MTN, Vodafone Chase Untapped Ethiopian Telecom Market
Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest telecommunications company, said it was bidding on one license jointly with Vodafone.
Ethiopia has more than 110 million people, less than half of whom are telecom subscribers, making it one of the world’s few remaining untouched markets.
