Africa has a number of well-known tech unicorns. But there are some “hidden unicorns” too: telco mobile money arms.
Telecom operators across the continent have largely conducted their mobile money businesses via wholly-owned subsidiaries, but they’re increasingly monetizing these assets — thanks in no small part to increased investor interest in Africa’s fast-growing digital payments landscape.
As a result, the value of these businesses is becoming clearer to all.
In 2021, for example, Airtel Africa unlocked $550 million in value from its mobile money subsidiary, Airtel Mobile Commerce. It sold a $200 million stake to TPG’s Rise Fund, a $100 million stake to Mastercard, another $200 million stake to Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and a $50 million stake to Chimera Investments.
In total Airtel Africa sold ~21% of its Airtel Money business and disclosed that these buyers valued the unit at $2.5 billion.
In April 2021, one month after the Airtel Money/TPG Rise deal was announced, MTN CEO Ralph Mupita told Bloomberg, “With similar [multiples] to that of Airtel, our [mobile money unit] valuation would sit at … about $5 billion. No decision has been made as yet [as to] the best approach to unlock value.”
Mupita and Africa’s largest telco have now decided how best to extract value from MTN’s mobile money unit.
MTN signed definitive agreements to sell a $200 million stake in MTN Group Fintech BV — the legal entity that houses MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) — to Mastercard at a $5.2 billion valuation. (MTN first announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Mastercard in August 2023, but the size of the transaction wasn’t disclosed at the time.)
Africa is the epicenter of mobile money globally. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for two of out every three dollars sent via mobile money worldwide. So it’s no surprise that hugely valuable companies are being built in the sector.
![](https://afridigest.com/wp-content/uploads/MomoTxnVals2011-2021b-768x349.png)
Source: GSMA. UNCDF.
And thanks to the monetization efforts of Airtel Africa and MTN, exactly how much Airtel Money and MTN MoMo are worth in the marketplace is now a part of the public record.
And so, too, are their valuation multiples (~6x revenue, ~12x EBITDA, ~$123 per active user for Airtel Money in 2021 and ~5x revenue, ~16x EBITDA, ~$85 per active user for MTN MoMo in 2023).
While one can extrapolate from the multiples above, what’s still unknown is how investors might value Orange Money and M-Pesa today.
Notably, when asked in May 2021 about the potential of spinning off M-Pesa, Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub responded, “We are not in a position yet where we think the time is optimal to sell or even monetize a portion of the assets because we believe there is still a lot of growth left… It’s too early to have that conversation now. Maybe 2, 3 years down the line, it will be … a different conversation.”
Unless things have changed, it should be about time for Joosub, Vodacom, and Safaricom to start taking steps to capture some of the value that resides in M-Pesa.
In any case, when you think about unicorns in Africa, you’d be wise not to ignore the value telcos across the continent are creating with mobile money.
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