South Africa's biggest mobile phone operator, Vodacom, is buying a 35% stake in Kenya's largest mobile firm, Safaricom, for $2.6bn (£2bn).

The stake in Safaricom is being sold by Vodafone as part of its drive to streamline its African businesses.


The deal will extend the South African firm's influence in Kenya.


It will also help increase the use of Safaricom's popular M-Pesa money transfer service across Africa.


M-Pesa, launched 10 years ago in Kenya by Safaricom, lets people without bank accounts use their mobile phones to transfer money.
However the tie-up comes just a year after Vodacom dropped M-Pesa in South Africa after it failed to prove popular with consumers.


That failure was largely attributed to the fact that possessing a conventional bank account is much more common there than in the rest of the continent.


M-Pesa is now available in Albania and Romania, as well as Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, India, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.




BBC     News.