State of the Industry: Results from the 2011 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey

This report summarizes some of the key findings from GSMA's Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) program's 2011 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey. The survey aimed to furnish industry participants and observers with a more accurate picture of customer adoption of mobile money, and to give managers of mobile money deployments better insight into the performance of their service relative to others. The survey was distributed to 88 providers of mobile money services around the world, of which 52 service providers from 35 countries participated. Highlights include:

• Fifty-two mobile money service providers who participated in the survey reported having registered a total of 60 million customers, of which 6 million customers were considered active;
• In June 2011, 80% of mobile money transactions processed occurred in East Africa;
• Participants reported almost 264,000 mobile money agents, 22% more than in December 2010;
• On an average, the annualized growth rate in payment volume for eight new services during the first half of 2011 was 38%;
• Close to 83% of payments in June 2011 were P2P transfers, making them the most common payment transaction.