Safaricom is currently looking to partner with software engineering firms to build more in-house mobile phone applications. This step will enable the company to generate new revenue streams as its voice business matures.
“The partners will co-create the software with Safaricom…the partners can then agree on a marketing and operations model,” said Safaricom in internal documents.
An example of a successful app is M-Pesa, started by Safaricom back in 2007. It has evolved from a basic mobile money transfer application into a fully-fledged financial service platform, offering loans and savings in partnership with local banks, plus merchant payment services. It is one of the most popular modes of payment in Kenya. At the end September it had nearly 27 million active users in a population of 47 million.
In 2018, Safaricom piloted a social messaging app that it said then would link to its mobile money platform. It is not clear what became of the project dubbed Bonga, translating to ‘chat’ in Kiswahili.
Kenya’s fast-growing technology sector, nicknamed “Silicon Savannah”, has attracted many entrepreneurs from places like the United States and United Kingdom supported by a pool of well-resourced software app developers in the country.
