M-KOPA Kenya Limited, the company behind solar power panels that allow users to pay for the service via mobile banking, is looking to increase its market share in Kenya to 100,000 from the current 7,500 clients.
This is according to the company’s managing director, Jesse Moore, who said this will be boosted by the increasing penetration of mobile banking services in the East African region.
“East Africa is the right market for us. I wouldn’t be interested in countries where there is no mobile money yet. What I bet on is four, five years from now there is a lot more mobile money happening.” Moore told MobileMoneyAfrica.
“Tanzania and Uganda have quite positive sort of enabling environments for mobile money and that is why they are progressing,” Moore added.
M-KOPA allows users in the rural areas to have access to solar power for lighting and charging of mobile phones.
This system is linked to a mobile payment service, through which the users pay KSh40 (US$0.5) per day, to use the service.
According to Moore, the daily charge to use the service is 20 per cent cheaper than using the normal Kerosene light which is in use in the many remote areas.
Approximately 15 million people use Safaricom’s M-Pesa service, and 80 per cent of them live in these remote areas where they have no access to electricity.
M-KOPA is therefore banking on this gap to increase its market while helping the locals save on the kerosene expenses.
M-KOPA is also looking to expand its boundaries to the Tanzanian and Ugandan market where there are eight million and five million mobile money users.
