An African fintech that has grown on the strength of a 30,000-strong team of direct salespeople is moving into profit country by sub-Saharan country. Now, M-KOPA, the pay-as-you-go asset financing platform serving 5 million underbanked Africans, is racing toward a major milestone: surpassing an annual revenue rate of $400 million by year-end.
The London-headquartered fintech ended last year with 4 million customers and $248 million in ARR, making this jump particularly notable given the harsh economic backdrop. With currencies plummeting against the dollar and consumer purchasing power squeezed by inflation, maintaining dollarized growth in African markets has been an uphill battle. Yet, M-KOPA has not only weathered these conditions — it’s thriving.
The 13-year-old company offers smartphones and other “productive assets” through flexible digital micropayments, where users pay daily based on the whole cost of the item divided up by 365 days. It claims to have hit profitability since last year across four countries: Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana. South Africa, where it opened around a year ago, is its fastest-growing market, chief commercial officer (CCO) Mayur Patel told TechCrunch in an interview.
M-KOPA’s growth comes with a caveat. Default rates, it said, are around 10% — slightly lower than regional bank averages but higher than U.S. consumer loan benchmarks. That raises questions about long-term sustainability. However, after a decade in Africa’s expanding credit market, fintech believes it has shown how it will profit from those rates.
“Our loss rates have been remarkably stable over the last 4 years as the company has rapidly scaled, regardless of changes in the macro environment. This is a testament to the fact that financed phones are a productive asset in people’s lives, and a key part of how every day earners generate their income and participate in the digital economy,” the company said in a statement.
From Africa’s financial inclusion point of view and narrative, though, M-KOPA’s metrics are noteworthy. They prove that startups can build profitable models while catering to the 90 …