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OperatorEffective 1 September 2026Updated 1 September 2026

State of mobile money in Kenya 2026: M-PESA processes KShs 41.68T, Airtel Money hits US$195.9B across 14 markets

paybillke publishes the definitive Kenya mobile money 2026 data report, compiled from the primary Safaricom PLC and Airtel Africa plc FY26 filings. Every figure sourced, every comparison caveated.

What changed

  • M-PESA processed KShs 41.68 trillion in FY26, roughly 2.4 times Kenya's nominal GDP of KShs 17.58 trillion (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026).
  • 40.99 million M-PESA one-month-active customers in Kenya, up 14.5 percent, generating KShs 182.7 billion in revenue on 46.4 billion transactions in the year (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026).
  • 57.8 percent of M-PESA transactions were non-chargeable in FY26, some 26.8 billion transactions on which the customer paid nothing, an explicit financial-inclusion strategy (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026).
  • The merchant base (Lipa na M-PESA plus Pochi la Biashara) jumped 70 percent year on year to 3.13 million tills, with Pochi alone up 81.5 percent to 2.09 million (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026).
  • Airtel Money processed US$195.9 billion across its fourteen African markets in FY26 and generated US$1,355 million in revenue, meaning M-PESA in Kenya alone earns more mobile-money revenue than Airtel Money does across the continent (Source: Airtel Africa plc Annual Report and Accounts 2026).

Why it matters

Kenya's mobile money is deep, not just wide. M-PESA's 41 million customers is not the biggest African base, but they use it 46.4 billion times a year at more than twice the country's GDP. The growth is now moving up the stack, tills up seventy percent, Fuliza-led financial services up a fifth, Ziidi wealth assets multiplying. And with 57.8 percent of transactions free, affordability is a deliberate strategy, not an accident. Mobile money is no longer a feature of the Kenyan economy, it is the substrate the economy runs on.

What to do

  • For journalists: cite the numbers directly. The cornerstone report lists every figure inline with its primary-source citation and the report may be cited with attribution to paybillke.
  • For businesses tracking payment costs: read the free-tier note. More than half of all M-PESA activity by volume carries no fee at all.
  • For anyone comparing operators: the M-PESA vs Airtel Money table on the cornerstone report page presents both operators' own figures side by side, with an explicit note that these are not like-for-like geographies.

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Published 1 September 2026 on paybillke. Last verified 1 September 2026. We refresh news entries quarterly and within 48 hours of any directly relevant ecosystem change. Editorial process.