Kenya had 54,005,800 active mobile money subscriptions on 30 June 2026. That’s 101.3 for every 100 people in the country. The number grew by 6,285,605 in a year, up 13.2%. The figures are in the Communications Authority of Kenya’s sector statistics report for April to June 2026, which went up on 18th September.
Mobile money first went past 100% in March, when the count reached 53.4 million and penetration hit 100.1%. In December it had been just under 98%.
What’s being counted
Mobile money is a wallet tied to your SIM card that you use to send money, pay for things and save. In Kenya that means Safaricom’s M-Pesa, Airtel Money and Telkom’s T-Kash. The Communications Authority (CA), Kenya’s telecoms regulator, counts active mobile money subscriptions, one per SIM.
That’s why the number can be bigger than the population. If you have M-Pesa on one line and Airtel Money on another, you’re two of the 54 million. So 101.3% doesn’t mean every Kenyan uses mobile money.
The Central Bank of Kenya counts differently. It counts all registered accounts rather than active ones, and put that at 94.2 million in June.
It took off after 2023
For most of 2023 the count barely moved. It was 37,991,105 in June 2023 and 38,002,803 in December. Since then it has grown by 16 million, 42% in three years.
Most of the last year’s growth came between October and March. The CA recorded 2,725,628 new subscriptions between October and December 2025 and 2,012,514 between January and March. April to June added 636,861, the smallest of the four quarters.
Airtel Money is growing faster than M-Pesa
M-Pesa has 88.8% of active subscriptions and Airtel Money has 11.1%. T-Kash rounds to 0.0%.
| June | M-Pesa | Airtel Money |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 93.4% | 6.6% |
| 2025 | 90.9% | 9.1% |
| 2026 | 88.8% | 11.1% |
M-Pesa had 97.1% in June 2023. Its share has slipped in almost every quarter since, and Airtel Money’s has risen.
Both are still growing. Applying the CA’s shares to its totals gives M-Pesa about 48.0 million active subscriptions in June 2026, up from about 37.2 million two years earlier. Airtel Money went from about 2.6 million to about 6.0 million over the same two years, more than double. Those counts are our arithmetic from the CA’s figures. The CA doesn’t publish them per provider.
Safaricom measures M-Pesa its own way. It counts customers who used M-Pesa in the last month, and that passed 40 million in March. Airtel Money, for its part, lets Airtel users send money to each other for free, and Airtel Africa is preparing to list Airtel Money in London.
Agents: a spike in March, then growth again
Agents are the shops and kiosks where you put cash into your wallet or take it out. The CA counted 568,463 registered mobile money agents in June, 34,007 fewer than in March. It’s the first quarterly fall the CA has printed since December 2023.
But March was the odd one out. The CA’s count jumped by 101,071 between December and March, almost as many as the whole of the previous financial year added. Against June 2025, agents are still up 114,983, or 25.4%.
The Central Bank’s monthly figures show the same shape in more detail. It counted 507,383 active agents in February, 621,389 in March and 548,010 in April. Since then the number has gone up every month: 564,330 in May, 572,104 in June and 575,400 in July.
Agents handle a lot of money. In June, Kenyans made 212.45 million cash deposits and withdrawals through agents, worth KES 682.46 billion.
What to watch
The Central Bank publishes its agent and account numbers every month, so August’s figures will show whether agent growth holds. The CA’s next report, for July to September, is due around December. By then Airtel Money’s London listing, which Airtel Africa has said will happen in the second half of 2026, may also be done.
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