Ethiopia: Safaricom partners with the postal service to expand the reach of M-Pesa
March 16th 2026
Safaricom officially launched its mobile money services platform in Ethiopia in August 2023. Since then, the company has been making significant efforts to establish itself in the mobile money segment while simultaneously expanding the reach of its telecom services.
Telecom company Safaricom Ethiopia has partnered with Ethiopia’s state-owned postal service, EthioPost, to expand the reach of its mobile money services in the country. The company aims to reach more customers with M-Pesa in a market where competition is already fierce.
In a press release published on Thursday, March 12, M-Pesa Ethiopia announced the signing of an agreement with EthioPost, officially designating the latter as the primary agent within the M-Pesa ecosystem. The postal company will thus be able to leverage its established presence and extensive network of branches to provide mobile money services at its points of sale, supported by a broad network of sub-agents.
” This collaboration will enable EthioPost to play a central role in expanding M-Pesa’s footprint, ensuring that more customers can access reliable mobile financial services — such as withdrawals, deposits and assisted payments — close to where they live and work ,” M-Pesa said in the statement.
Efforts in the face of well-established competition
Overall, this initiative is part of Safaricom’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its presence in the mobile money market since launching its commercial operations in August 2023. In October 2025, the operator integrated M-Pesa into the national payment network EthSwitch. In March 2025, it also partnered with the fintech company Lakipay to facilitate merchant payments.
In July 2024, the company signed an agreement with the national electricity company to enable bill payments via M-Pesa. In October 2024, it further expanded its M-Pesa Global service to Ethiopia, paving the way for money transfers between Kenya and Ethiopia. The operator is thus continuing to diversify its financial services and forge numerous partnerships, including with government authorities, to support payments within the context of digital transformation.
Safaricom is seeking to gain a foothold in the Ethiopian mobile money market, where the incumbent operator Ethio Telecom holds a significant lead with its Telebirr platform. Launched in May 2021, Telebirr had 58.61 million subscriptions by the end of December 2025.
At the end of September, M-Pesa had 3.4 million active subscribers, representing approximately 30% of Safaricom’s mobile subscribers, while its network covered 55% of the population. Year-on-year, the service’s user base grew by approximately 175%.
A market still far from saturation
The mobile money market, however, presents growth opportunities for various players. Ethiopia had approximately 132 million inhabitants in 2024, according to the World Bank. Adding together the subscriptions of the two operators, the national user base reaches approximately 62 million, representing a penetration rate of nearly 47%.
The actual figures may be lower, however, because statistics often treat each SIM card using the service as a separate subscriber, whereas a single person may own several.
Furthermore, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) estimated in a report published in 2023 that, in the most favorable scenario, mobile money adoption could reach approximately 60% of the population aged over 15 by 2030, compared to 5% in 2022. In an intermediate scenario, this rate would reach approximately 40%, compared to 16% in the most pessimistic scenario.
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