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Good practice Imported

M-KOPA's Pay-As-You-Go Smartphone Financing Reaches a Million Ugandan Customers

Uganda · Kampala · See the Uganda profile · See the Kampala profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 68% 56/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

M-KOPA finances smartphones for informal-economy workers on 6-12 month pay-as-you-go plans, building a repayment-based credit history. It passed one million customers in Uganda, though its headline figures come from its own surveys, not independent evaluation.

7 million+ customers
Total customers served since 2010 (cumulative since 2010)
1 million+ customers
Ugandan customers (by 2025)
173,000+ users
Smart Money digital lending users (Uganda) (current)
3 million+ active customers
Active customers (all markets) (current)
30,000 agents
Sales agents (current)
9 in 10 customers, across M-KOPA's markets
Customers reporting improved quality of life (2023)
78 %
Ugandan customers reporting increased income (2023)
M-KOPA's Pay-As-You-Go Smartphone Financing Reaches a Million Ugandan Customers

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
M-KOPA
Period
2010–present (Uganda: passed 1 million customers by 2025)
Keywords
digital device financing, fintech, connectivity, financial inclusion

Context

M-KOPA sells smartphones on daily micro-payment plans lasting six to twelve months to informal-economy customers who lack collateral for conventional financing.

Objectives

Each device can be remotely locked for non-payment, acting as the collateral, while a customer's repayment record builds a credit score that can unlock further loans, insurance and savings products.

Activities

The company operates in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, and in Uganda specifically has passed one million customers while running a 'Smart Money' digital lending platform serving over 173,000 users in the country.

Results

M-KOPA reports serving over 7 million customers since it launched in 2010, adding roughly 200,000 new customers a month, with more than 3 million active customers and around 30,000 sales agents; M-KOPA's headline outcome figures are 9 in 10 customers reporting improved quality of life across its markets, and 78% of Ugandan customers reporting increased income.

Conclusions

These figures come from the company's own 2023 impact report and customer surveys, not from an independent randomized evaluation; an independent policy-research interview with Mathematica (February 2025) corroborates the business model and its scale but does not itself provide independent outcome verification — a limitation worth flagging honestly even where the reach is real and well documented.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — The model is financed through daily micro-payments over six-to-twelve-month plans rather than a large upfront capital outlay from customers, with M-KOPA bearing device and credit risk offset by remote-lock collateral.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Operating continuously since 2010, M-KOPA passed one million customers in Uganda and over 7 million across five countries by the mid-2020s, with the Smart Money lending platform as a more recent addition.
Staffing & skills
M-KOPA (fintech/device-financing company), Around 30,000 sales agents across operating markets

Conditions for success

  • Remote-lockable smartphone as built-in collateral, removing the need for conventional collateral
  • Repayment-based credit scoring unlocking further loans, insurance and savings products
  • Large in-country agent network (around 30,000 sales agents) for last-mile distribution

Common failure modes

  • Headline outcome figures (quality of life, income increase) rely solely on company-run customer surveys, not an independent randomized evaluation
  • No third-party outcome verification identified despite independent corroboration of the business model's scale

Where it fits

Governance type
private fintech company
Scale
multi-country (Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa), over one million customers in Uganda alone
Income level
low-to-lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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