- Vodacom plans to gradually replace its My Vodacom smartphone app with VodaPay, its super app, early in 2024.
- Group CEO Shameel Joosub stated that doing so will help provide customers with a unified interface for interacting with Vodacom and its partner companies' services.
- Since VodaPay already integrates the Vodacom suite of telecommunications services, new users will be directed to use VodaPay instead of My Vodacom upon signup. However, existing My Vodacom users will switch starting in 2024.
In October 2021, Vodacom officially launched VodaPay super app to customers on any mobile network, offering many third-party services that enable users to do several tasks, including ordering takeout, sending money, and making grocery purchases.
In May 2022, Joosub stated that VodaPay will be critical in Vodacom's quest to connect the next 100 million African customers. Since then, it has made it its goal to become the leading fintech company in Africa, claiming that financial services are essential to its business plan.
Businesses and consumers can access financial, lifestyle, and digital shopping services through the VodaPay super app, which doubles as a payment platform. It also provides cashless payments and app rewards.
Meanwhile, Vodacom launched M-PESA in South Africa in 2010. With only 76,000 active users for six gruelling years, it shut down the product in 2016.
Consequently, Joosub said Vodacom has no intentions to bring back Safaricom’s mobile money platform to the country. Instead, VodaPay will offer all M-PESA services currently available in places where its rival operates, including Tanzania and Kenya.
Per a report, in its first three months of launch, VodaPay attracted 1.4 million downloads and 1.0 million registered users, exceeding expectations.
With over 6.7 million downloads, the super app had 3.3 million registered users as of June 2023. VodaPay could have over 7 million users by 2024, with approximately 4 million customers on the My Vodacom app.
However, M-PESA, which has been operating since 2007, offers more than 51 million users in seven African nations a cheap, safe way to send and receive money, top-up airtime, pay bills, get paid, apply for short-term loans, and much more.
What’s more, in 2020, Kenya’s Safaricom and South Africa’s Vodacom fully acquired M-PESA from the UK's Vodafone.
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