TeleResearch: 90% of mobile money players taking wrong approach, Kenya’s Equitel in the 10%

In its latest research “Worldwide Mobile Money Modernisation and Monetisation,” TeleResearch Labs found that modern mobile money players have achieved average revenue growth of up to 18% by specifically investing in modern mo bile money systems and applications. However, 90% of mobile money players are still working on old models without any significant profit.

The Report finds that as mobile money players turn to ‘Hypergrowth strategy’, players who are still relying on traditional business models will be outperformed more quickly than can be imagined. And, players who are designing modern mobile money portfolios will benefit from higher uptake in adoption, sustainable customer loyalty and of course a multitude of revenues.

“This first-of-its-kind research report offers critical insights into the transformative impact of modern systems in mobile money industry in developed and emerging markets,” said David Brown, Senior Consultant, BFSI.

The Report supports its insights with analyses of hundreds of hypergrowth business models. The Report cites Equitel as an example of one such hypergrowth business that explored mobile money to not only challenge the global leader in the market but successfully outperformed. In less than 2 years of launch, Equitel is now the second largest mobile money service in Kenya as far as mobile money transaction values are concerned. More interestingly, Equitel money has mobile money subscriber share of 4%; however, it accounted for 20% of total mobile money transactions by volume and 22% of total mobile money transactions by value respectively in 2016. The achievement of Equitel is really noteworthy as M-pesa has proven monopoly in Kenyan market in mobile money space.

Oscar Mine, Senior Analyst, Mobile Money Business Intelligence, challenges the strategies adopted by majority of players:
How existing mobile money players afford to allow new entrants hit them so hard? More importantly, how can existing players become stagnant, keep on offering stale product and anticipate growing revenues, ATPU, etc.?

“After studying more than 500 mobile money strategies adopted by players (MNOs, banks, and FinTechs) in the last decade, we have concluded that Hypergrowth model is required for the modern mobile money businesses that applies across industries and verticals; and, gives the ability to scale quickly, easily, and repeatedly,” said Oscar.