Airtel Africa earmarks $750m to revamp mobile money market
By Onome Amuge
Airtel Africa has announced its intention to roll out $750 million in capital expenditure in 2023 to ramp up its mobile-money business across Africa as part of efforts to sustain investment infrastructure in the continent.
The firm, in its annual report, also disclosed that it would be raising capital spending from $656 million in the year through March.
The multinational telecom giant is one of the leading telecom operators in Africa with mobile divisions in 14 countries including; Nigeria,Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Gabon, Madagascar, Niger, Republic of the Congo and Seychelles.
With over 134 million mobile subscribers across the world’s second most populated continent after Asia,the company aims to drive better efficiency for businesses to engage in seamless mobile money activity via its mobile-money operation.
The mobile money platform integrates remote payments with Airtel Money wallets, to provide greater ease of access for Airtel Money services across multiple business sectors.
As part of its commitment to better respond to the rise in popularity around digital money services and ecommerce platforms across Africa, Airtel is looking to ramp up its mobile-phone based financial offering in its biggest market, Nigeria, where the government is promoting cashless payments to expand commerce in the continent’s largest economy.
Highlighting the opportunity of mobile-money business in the promotion of cashless payments by Nigeria’s government to expand commerce, Segun Ogunsanya,the group chief executive officer of Airtel,said the company is in a very good position to now take advantage of the cashless policy of the government in driving the penetration of a digital model.
“We’ve got a lot more phones than debit cards. We’re really planning to automate this opportunity and use this policy to drive differentiation of money in our customer base,” Ogunsanya said.
The CEO also noted that the wireless carrier plans to further develop its technology platform and distribution infrastructure.