[ 2016-11-16 ]

Mobile Money records 420% growth in 5 years
Records from the Ghana Chamber of
Telecommunications indicate mobile money wallets
have grown 420 percent from an estimated
2.5million in 2011 to over 13 million currently.

Over the same period, the volume of mobile money
transactions grew from about 10 million to a
whopping 267 million, while the monetary value of
those transactions also rose from about
GH¢400million to hit a staggering GH¢35billion
($9bn).

In 2011, there were just about 6,000 mobile money
merchants, but currently, between the four telcos
that run mobile money service in this country,
there are over 80,000 merchants serving Ghanaians
across the country.

This is way more than all bank, savings and loans
and other financial service companies branches put
together.

Mobile Money, has over these five years been a
major platform for the money transfers, airtime
purchase, and payments such as school fees,
utility bills, for goods and services, foreign
remittances and for government stipends to person
pro-poor programs among others.

Recently, wallet holders started earning quarterly
interests on the daily balances on their mobile
money wallets, a move expected to even boost the
use of the service further and to promote
financial inclusion.

Telecoms market leader, MTN, has, for instance,
made it possible, through a partnership with
Ecobank, for wallet holders to make financial
investments through the purchase of treasury bills
using their wallet.

Banking industry players have indeed admitted that
mobile money will lead the national drive towards
a cashless/cash-lite society and financial
inclusion.

Telecoms Chamber CEO, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo believes
the influx of affordable smartphones, interest on
mobile wallet balances, and the other benefits
mobile money promises will eventually get Ghana to
its cash-lite destination.

Taxes

Meanwhile, the report from Telecoms Chamber
indicates that, beyond the exponential growth in
mobile money over the last five years of the
Chamber's life, the sector also made a tremendous
contribution in terms of taxes and other payments
to the state.

The sector contributed as estimated GHC4.92
billion in total taxes to the state in the last
five years, while making additional payments of
about GHC595million in other remittances on
international incoming traffic, among others.

The additional remittances include regulatory
fees, spectrum fee, local authority levies, row
fees to road agencies, BOPs, the outmoded National
Fiscal Stabilization Levy, and surcharge .

Indeed, in 2015 alone, the sector paid GH¢1.42 in
total taxes and some GH¢168 million in other
remittances.

CAPEX

Over the same five-year period, industry players
also invested some GH¢3.82 billion in capital
expenditure geared at improving the quality of
services.

Indeed, in the last five years, the National
Communication Authority's Quality of Service
trends consistently show improvements in telecoms
quality of service in the country, even though
there is still room for more improvement.

Part of the big investments in the sector within
the period was MTN Ghana's purchase of a 4G LTE
spectrum for $67.5 and plus an initial $18 million
to deploy the services across six regional
capitals in the country.

Subscription

It is also worthy of note that in those five years
the sector also saw very significant growth in
both voice and data subscriptions. Voice
subscriptions grew by over 71 percent, from 21
million in 2011 to the current over 36 million,
while data subscription grew by 125 per cent, from
eight million to 18 million over the period.

The telecom ecosystem, particularly, those which
constitute the Chamber, till date, provide some
6,200 direct jobs and about 1.6 million indirect
jobs.

The NCA subscriber base trends indicate the sector
is growing every month in spite of the fact that
there are six players serving an estimated
population of about 27 million, out of which about
17 million are estimated to be eligible phone
users.

Source - Joyfm

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