Three months ago, I wrote about how finally using Airtel Money as my primary mobile-money interface for two days completely changed the way I thought about M-PESA, Safaricom and the competitive possibilities in Kenya’s digital-payments market.

That experience began almost by accident.

Safaricom had just launched My OneApp, and the onboarding and usability problems I experienced at the time forced me to look seriously at an alternative wallet that had been sitting largely dormant on my phone. When I opened the MyAirtel App and started using its Airtel Money functionality, I found something I had not expected: a simple, restrained and increasingly capable experience that let me complete the transactions I needed without making me fight the interface.

Shortly thereafter, Airtel Kenya launched Refer & Earn, a cleverly structured campaign that rewarded customers not only for attracting new MyAirtel App users, but for helping to keep them active over several months. I argued then that the timing looked like a deliberate competitive attack on Safaricom at precisely the moment many customers were frustrated with My OneApp.

However, the bigger Airtel Money story is no longer just about my experience or one well-timed campaign.

The regulatory data, Airtel Africa’s latest financial results, Airtel Kenya’s network growth and a widening series of banking, merchant and payments integrations now point in the same direction: Airtel Money is finally becoming a credible mobile money challenger in Kenya.

Let me be clear from the outset. Airtel Money is NOT about to overtake M-PESA. It is not even close.

But Kenya may be entering its first genuinely competitive mobile money phase in years, and that could matter far more to consumers and businesses than whether Airtel Money ever becomes number one.

The Data Now Confirms What My Experience Suggested

The most compelling evidence comes from the Communications Authority of Kenya’s quarterly sector statistics.

In December 2023, Airtel Money held only 2.9% of Kenya’s active mobile-money subscriptions. M-PESA held 97.1%.

By March 2026, Airtel Money’s share had reached 10.9%, while M-PESA’s had declined to 89.1%.

That is a substantial change in only 27 months.

More importantly, Airtel Money was not gaining share in a stagnant or shrinking market. Kenya’s total active mobile-money subscriptions expanded from approximately 38.0 million in December 2023 to 53.4 million in March 2026.

*The implied Airtel Money figures are my calculations based on CA totals and reported market shares. They are not separately published customer numbers and should not be confused with Airtel Africa’s 30-day active-customer definition.

On that basis, Airtel Money’s implied active subscriptions increased more than fivefold, from about 1.1 million to approximately 5.8 million.

M-PESA, meanwhile, was not shrinking in absolute terms. Applying the same calculation, its active subscriptions increased from roughly 36.9 million to about 47.5 million as the overall market grew.

This is an important distinction. Airtel Money’s progress is not a story of M-PESA collapsing. It is a story of a fast-growing challenger expanding more quickly inside an expanding market.

The latest quarter also introduces a useful note of caution. Airtel Money reached 11.0% in December 2025 and then edged back to 10.9% in March 2026. Momentum is real, but it is neither automatic nor guaranteed.

M-PESA’s Lead Remains Enormous

Any serious analysis of Airtel Money has to remain proportionate to the scale of the incumbent.

Safaricom reported 41 million active M-PESA customers in its 2026 financial year. M-PESA generated KES182.7 billion in annual revenue, up 13.4%, and accounted for 45.6% of Safaricom Kenya’s service revenue. Customers moved approximately KES41.7 trillion through the platform during the year, while Safaricom’s total merchant base expanded to about 3.1 million.

Those are not merely mobile-wallet numbers. They describe economic infrastructure that is deeply embedded in how Kenyans get paid, send money, shop, borrow, save, invest, collect revenue and run businesses.

M-PESA’s greatest advantage is therefore not only market share. It is habit.

Millions of Kenyans know the interface instinctively. Businesses print M-PESA till and paybill numbers on their counters, invoices and social-media pages. Banks, government services, schools, utilities, lenders, insurers, investment platforms and online merchants have built workflows around it. Its agent network provides the cash-in and cash-out liquidity that keeps the wider system functioning.

Airtel Money is challenging an ecosystem, not simply another app.

There is also a measurement problem. The CA market shares tell us about active subscriptions. They do not tell us Airtel Money’s share of transaction value, transaction volume, merchant payments, revenue or customer engagement. Kenya-level Airtel Money data in those categories is not publicly disclosed on a basis directly comparable with Safaricom’s M-PESA reporting.

Consequently, 10.9% of subscriptions does NOT mean 10.9% of the economic activity flowing through Kenya’s mobile-money system.

It nevertheless means that millions more Kenyans now have an active alternative wallet — and that is where competitive pressure begins.

What Is Driving Airtel Money’s Growth In Kenya?

There is no single explanation. Airtel Money’s progress is the result of several mutually reinforcing changes.

Airtel Kenya Has Built A Much Larger Customer Base

A mobile money wallet becomes easier to scale when the underlying network is also growing.

Airtel Kenya crossed 24 million mobile customers in July 2025. In the four years under former Managing Director Ashish Malhotra, Airtel says its subscriber base expanded from 16 million to more than 24 million, revenues doubled and more than 2,000 network sites were rolled out.

During the same period, the company says Airtel Money’s market share rose from approximately 2% to 11%.

This does not mean all 24 million mobile customers use Airtel Money. It means Airtel now has a much larger addressable base to convert, a wider network through which customers can transact and more reason to bundle connectivity and financial-services incentives together.

The leadership transition to Djibril Tobe, who succeeded Malhotra as Airtel Kenya Managing Director in June 2026, therefore comes at an interesting moment. He inherits a business that has established momentum but now has to turn rapid acquisition into durable usage, stronger service quality and deeper customer trust.

Interoperability Has Reduced The Penalty Of Being Smaller

For years, the biggest weakness facing any M-PESA rival was the closed-loop effect, also known as ‘network effects’: people used the wallet that most other people and merchants already used.

Interoperability has begun to weaken that barrier.

The CA specifically linked the 2024 growth in mobile-money subscriptions to the removal of withdrawal codes for transfers from M-PESA to Airtel Money. Funds sent from M-PESA could land directly in an Airtel Money wallet instead of forcing the recipient through an awkward withdrawal process.

That sounds like a small technical change, but strategically it is enormous.

A smaller wallet becomes more useful when customers can receive money from the dominant wallet without friction. Airtel Money no longer has to recreate the entire M-PESA network before it can offer everyday utility. It can connect into the broader payments system and compete on price, experience and rewards.

Airtel Money Became A More Focused Business

Airtel Money Kenya separated from Airtel Networks Kenya in 2022 and operates as a distinct, regulated payment-service provider under the Central Bank of Kenya and the Communications Authority of Kenya.

That separation matters because mobile money is no longer a small telecoms add-on. It requires its own platform investment, risk controls, regulatory focus, product roadmap, partnerships and distribution strategy.

Airtel has subsequently upgraded the platform and expanded its payment use cases. The result is a business that increasingly looks like a financial-services ecosystem rather than a wallet attached to airtime sales.

Airtel Is Competing On Value, Not Just Availability

The Rudishiwa campaign has been central to Airtel Money’s customer proposition.

The basic idea is simple: return part or all of selected transaction fees to customers, frequently as airtime, on eligible withdrawals, bank-to-wallet transfers and paybill transactions. The exact percentages, eligible transactions, caps and reward format have changed across different versions of the offer, which means customers should always confirm the live terms in the app or through Airtel before transacting.

Even with that caveat, the strategic logic is clear. M-PESA’s scale gives Safaricom extraordinary convenience and reach. Airtel is countering with price-led reasons to create, fund and repeatedly use a second wallet.

This is not only a discount. It is customer-acquisition expenditure designed to build a new habit.

The MyAirtel App Gives The Wallet A Cleaner Digital Front Door

My own experience matters here, although it should be understood as one customer’s experience rather than a universal usability study.

What impressed me about the MyAirtel App was its restraint. Airtime, data, account management, home broadband and Airtel Money were presented as clear functional areas. I could enter the app, complete a transaction and leave without navigating an overcrowded content and services marketplace.

That simplicity is commercially useful because Airtel Money is not only competing for registered users. It is competing for transaction frequency.

Airtel Africa says app-transacting Airtel Money customers increased by 74% in FY2026. Across the wider MyAirtel App, transaction value rose by approximately 79% to $8.3 billion. This remains a small part of the group’s total mobile-money value, but it shows how smartphones are becoming an increasingly important front end for a business historically built around USSD.

The Ecosystem Is Becoming More Connected

The April 2026 partnership between Airtel Money and Absa Bank Kenya is a good example of what ecosystem expansion looks like in practice.

The integration enables customers to move funds from Airtel Money wallets into Absa accounts and pay Absa merchant paybills. For small and medium-sized enterprises, this can reduce the friction between receiving mobile payments and managing bank cashflows.

Customers can use *334# or the MyAirtel App, select Airtel paybill, enter Absa paybill number 303030, and then enter the relevant Absa account number or merchant short code.

Absa and Airtel built the partnership around SMEs, but its strategic significance is broader: a mobile wallet becomes more valuable as it connects to more banks, merchants, utilities, platforms and cross-border payment corridors.

Airtel Money is therefore not trying to win only by replicating M-PESA feature for feature. It is reducing the number of situations in which a customer has no practical choice but to return to M-PESA.

Physical distribution is expanding alongside those integrations. Airtel has said its Kenyan Airtel Money network exceeds 260,000 agents, while the CA reports that total registered mobile money agents across the industry increased from 327,162 in December 2023 to 602,470 in March 2026. Those figures should be handled cautiously because agents may serve more than one provider and registration counts do not automatically establish active outlets, exclusivity or reliable liquidity. Even so, this matters for the following reason: a second wallet only becomes practical when customers can fund and withdraw from it beyond the major urban centres.

The Kenya Story Sits Inside A Much Bigger African Growth Story

Airtel Money’s local momentum is part of a continental business that has now reached meaningful scale.

This week, for the year ended 31 March 2026, Airtel Africa reported:

• 54.1 million 30-day active Airtel Money customers, up 21.3%.
• $1.355 billion in mobile-money segment revenue, up 36.3% in reported currency and 28.4% in constant currency.
• $195.9 billion in full-year processed value, up 43.5% in reported currency.
• Annualised processed value above $215 billion in the fourth quarter.
• 2.4 million agents, up approximately 39%.
• 40.9 million Airtel Money customers in East Africa, 10.5 million in Francophone Africa and 2.7 million in Nigeria.

The first quarter of FY2027, covering the three months to June 2026, shows that the trajectory has accelerated rather than plateaued.

Airtel Money’s active customer base reached 56.5 million, up 23.3% year-on-year and approximately 2.4 million higher than at the end of March. The platform processed $61.4 billion in the quarter, representing growth of 51.5% in reported currency and 37.4% in constant currency. That lifted annualised processed value above $245 billion.

These figures need to be read carefully. The $61.4 billion is value actually processed during the quarter. The $245 billion-plus figure is the annualised run-rate implied by that quarterly activity; it is not a completed 12-month transaction total. Even with that distinction, the movement from a Q4 FY2026 run-rate above $215 billion to more than $245 billion one quarter later is substantial.

Revenue is expanding alongside transaction value. Airtel Money generated $404 million during Q1 FY2027, up 38.9% in reported currency and 25.8% in constant currency. EBITDA reached $198 million at a 49.1% margin. The value processed per customer increased 13.0% to $371 per month, indicating that the platform is not only adding wallets but also deepening engagement across payments, transfers and financial services.

The regional detail is especially revealing.

East Africa remains the commercial centre of Airtel Money. By June 2026 it accounted for 41.7 million customers, up 15.0% year-on-year, and generated $297 million of the quarter’s mobile-money revenue. Yet the fastest customer growth came from less mature markets: Francophone Africa grew 40.1% to 11.4 million customers, while Nigeria increased 129.4% to 3.4 million from a much smaller base.

This is clearly important. Airtel Money is not simply a successful East African wallet being counted across several countries. It is becoming a multi-speed Pan-African platform: mature enough to generate significant revenue and transaction volume in East Africa, while still having considerable adoption headroom in Nigeria and Francophone Africa.

Airtel is also expanding beyond deposits, withdrawals and person-to-person transfers into merchant payments, international transfers, savings, digital lending, insurance, wealth products and card-linked services. Its FY2026 results say total processed value per customer increased 14.4% to $332 per month, which suggests that growth is coming not only from adding customers but from deeper use.

The broader market is moving in the same direction. The GSMA says more than $2 trillion flowed through mobile-money wallets globally in 2025, double the level reached only four years earlier. Thirty-day active accounts rose 15% to 593 million, with Sub-Saharan Africa contributing most of the new registered and active accounts.

Airtel Money’s footprint remains African rather than global. However, 56.5 million active customers and an annualised transaction run-rate above $245 billion are large enough to place it firmly in the global mobile-money conversation.

It is not a Kenyan experiment as Airtel Money has become one of the most important digital financial services platforms on the African continent.

The Proposed London IPO Changes The Long Term Story

The most important indication in Airtel Africa’s latest release may be its confirmation that London is the preferred venue for a proposed Airtel Money IPO in 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.

Those qualifications matter. The listing has not happened. It is not guaranteed, and the Q1 FY2027 release did not disclose an offer size, valuation or final timetable beyond the 2026 target. Market conditions, regulatory reviews and execution risk can still alter the outcome.

Even so, the proposed listing tells us something fundamental about Airtel Money’s ambition. 

For years, mobile money was frequently treated as a useful extension of the African telecoms model: a service that reduced churn, moved airtime and made the mobile network more valuable. A separate public listing would invite international investors to value Airtel Money as a fintech and payments business in its own right.

That would change the conversation significantly. 

An independently listed Airtel Money would have greater financial and strategic visibility. Public-market scrutiny could strengthen governance, disclosure and accountability. Depending on how the offer is structured, a listing could also give the business more flexibility to fund product development, partnerships and expansion — and create a clearer benchmark for judging its growth, profitability and execution.

The operating profile increasingly supports that standalone identity. This is now a business with 56.5 million active customers, $404 million in quarterly revenue, $198 million in quarterly EBITDA and more than $245 billion in annualised processed value. Airtel Money also contributed 21.8% of Airtel Africa’s group revenue during the quarter before the company’s stated inter-segment treatment.

The proposed London venue adds a global capital-markets dimension to what remains an African operating platform. Airtel Africa says London would provide access to a broad international investor base and support the long-term value of one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms.

The IPO is therefore more than a financing event. It is a declaration of strategic intent: Airtel Money wants to evolve from a telecom-attached wallet into a separately recognised Pan-African digital payments and financial services platform.

That ambition comes with difficult questions. Can Airtel translate rapid customer acquisition into sustained transaction frequency after incentives fade? Can it expand merchant acceptance, agent liquidity and financial-services use cases across very different regulatory environments? Can it maintain trust, manage fraud and protect margins while reducing prices? Can its faster-growing Nigerian and Francophone operations develop the depth already visible in East Africa?

The listing, if completed, will not answer those questions automatically. It will make the answers more visible.

For Kenya, the continental agenda matters because Airtel Money Kenya is connected to a platform with the scale, capital market ambition and product breadth to keep investing for the long term. The Absa integration, MyAirtel App, interoperability and cashback campaigns are not isolated local experiments. They are local expressions of a much larger effort to build one of Africa’s most important fintech businesses.

Why Promotions Matter — & Why They Are Not Enough

Airtel Kenya’s Refer & Earn programme brings the growth strategy together rather neatly.

An existing MyAirtel App user shares a unique referral link or code. A new user registers through it, funds an Airtel Money wallet and buys airtime or data through Airtel Money. The new customer receives 1GB of data, while the referrer can earn KES20 for each month in which that customer spends at least KES100 on qualifying airtime or data purchases, for up to five months — a potential KES100 per successfully retained customer, subject to the current terms.

This approach is smarter than a one-off download reward.

It pays for activity over time. The referrer becomes a distributed salesperson with a reason to help the new customer remain engaged. Airtel gains an app user, an Airtel Money wallet, a funded account and repeat purchases rather than an installation that may become dormant immediately.

However, incentives can rent behaviour without permanently changing it.

The real test begins when the rewards end. Will customers continue funding the wallet? Will they trust it for larger payments? Will merchants display Airtel Money options as prominently as M-PESA? Will agents consistently have enough float and cash? Will the platform remain reliable under heavier use? Will customer service resolve problems quickly? Can Airtel contain fraud while simplifying access?

Those questions will decide whether Airtel Money’s rising subscription share becomes a durable share of Kenya’s payment activity.

How Eligible Customers Can Explore The Full Airtel Money Benefit Stack

For eligible adults aged 18 and above who want to assess Airtel Money for themselves, the most sensible approach is to understand each offer before participating.

Refer & Earn

1. Download or open the MyAirtel App and register.
2. Open the Refer & Earn section and generate your unique referral link or code.
3. Share it with a new user who has not previously registered on the app.
4. The new user registers through the referral, activates and funds Airtel Money, and buys qualifying airtime or data.
5. When the referred user spends at least KES100 in a qualifying month, the referrer can receive KES20 in the Airtel Money wallet for that month, for up to five months. The new user receives the advertised 1GB registration benefit.

Rudishiwa Cashback

Rudishiwa can return transaction fees on selected withdrawals, bank-to-wallet transfers and paybill transactions. Some versions have advertised 50% cashback, while newer or partner-specific offers have promoted up to 100%, often delivered as airtime rather than wallet cash.

Check the live app, USSD menu and published terms for the current percentage, qualifying transaction, cap, reward format and validity period. “Up to 100%” should not be interpreted as every transaction being permanently free.

Absa Bank Kenya Payments

To transfer or pay an Absa merchant from Airtel Money:

1. Dial *334# or open the MyAirtel App.
2. Select Airtel paybill from the Airtel Money menu.
3. Enter Absa paybill number 303030.
4. Enter the Absa account number or merchant short code.
5. Confirm the amount, charges, recipient details and any cashback terms before authorising.

Promotional conditions can change. Anyone considering participation should verify the current terms directly with Airtel Kenya and treat cashback or referral income as a limited incentive rather than a guaranteed return.

Airtel Money Does Not Have To Defeat M-PESA To Change The Market

For almost two decades, M-PESA’s dominance has been so complete that Kenya’s mobile money market has often felt less like a competitive category and more like a piece of national infrastructure operated by one company.

That is not necessarily a criticism. M-PESA earned its position by building extraordinary reach, reliability, familiarity and utility.

But dominant platforms also need credible competitive pressure.

Airtel Money’s movement from 2.9% to 10.9% of active subscriptions does not overturn the market. What it does is create a large enough second option to influence customer expectations. Cashback becomes harder to ignore. App usability matters more. Interoperability becomes commercially valuable. Banks and merchants have more reason to support multiple wallets. Service failures become more expensive because customers have somewhere else to go.

This is why I now think the Airtel Money story is bigger than Airtel.

If it continues converting network customers into active wallet users, deepening merchant and banking integrations, improving agent liquidity, maintaining platform reliability and retaining customers after the promotions end, Kenya could finally develop a genuinely competitive mobile money market.

M-PESA will remain the benchmark — and probably the dominant platform for a long time.

But Airtel Money no longer looks irrelevant.

For eligible adult customers, the current promotions provide a relatively low-friction reason to learn more, compare the experience and consider whether Airtel Money deserves a place alongside M-PESA in their everyday financial lives.

That second-wallet behaviour may seem modest. At scale, it could be the beginning of a very different market.