{"id":38979,"date":"2026-07-07T10:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=38979"},"modified":"2026-07-07T10:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:57:20","slug":"m-pesas-regional-growth-set-to-surge-under-new-vodacom-control","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/m-pesas-regional-growth-set-to-surge-under-new-vodacom-control\/","title":{"rendered":"M-Pesa&#8217;s regional growth set to surge under new Vodacom control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Dennis Beru, journalist and team leader at Grassroot Journalism Kenya, points out, the newly finalised integration of Vodacom and Safaricom is a massive turning point for digital and financial infrastructure that stretches far beyond simple corporate headlines.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beru highlights that the consolidation slots perfectly into long-term expansion goals across East Africa, especially as Safaricom\u2019s highly lucrative M-Pesa platform continues its aggressive growth strategy, having recently signed on 14 million users in the Ethiopian market. The $2.1 billion transaction successfully closed after Kenya\u2019s Court of Appeal issued a decisive June 26 ruling that lifted a prior conservatory order blocking the move.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Under the finalised terms, the South African telecom giant has acquired a 15% stake from the Kenyan government and a further 5% from Vodafone Group PLC, pushing Vodacom&#8217;s total shareholding to 55% and giving it absolute majority control. While the Kenyan government has scaled back its equity to 20%, corporate leaders emphasise that the merger is set to drastically accelerate financial and tech ecosystem services across the entire region.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14621,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-38979","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Vodacom secures 55% Safaricom stake as cross-border expansion takes lead","published_date":"2026-07-07 10:55:22","news_description":"Vodacom secures 55% Safaricom stake as cross-border expansion takes lead","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38984,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38979\/revisions\/38984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}