Vodafone Group Plc Annual Report 2025 41
Strategic report
Governance
Financials
Other information
Empowering People continued
In our African markets, our financial inclusion solutions create opportunities for individuals, collectives, and enterprises to actively participate in the economy through access to financial products and services, available via multiple channels. Services include money transfers, bill payments, and e-commerce, amongst others. In partnership with licensed financial institutions, customers can also access savings, investments, lending, and insurance. We have built an extensive and diverse financial services business, developing products that cut across consumer segments and geographies and unlock strategic opportunities with our key partners. Our financial services diversify and enhance the Group’s growth and returns profile. We differentiate the Group by leveraging global technology partnerships and our centres of excellence to deliver attractive returns for our shareholders while creating exciting propositions for our customers. Our financial inclusion strategy draws on a dual-sided ecosystem, bringing consumers and merchants together, allowing our merchants to expand their addressable markets while creating an appealing ecosystem for our customers. In 2025, we have 1.2 million merchants with whom our customers can transact. Consumers and merchants are provided with personalised propositions driven by Big Data insights. Our super-apps – VodaPay, Vodafone Cash and M-Pesa – combine our strengths in financial, digital and telecommunications services, and integrate different products and services from our partners.
As our strategy progresses, we are seeking to unlock economic growth across our markets through fostering a savings culture for customers and enabling SMEs to thrive. In FY25, we continued to deepen financial inclusion across our M-Pesa markets, rolling out growth drivers such as youth accounts and international money transfers. In South Africa, beyond building payments and acquiring solutions for merchants, we have grown our enterprise ecosystem to include value-added services, vending and lending solutions. In 2025, we continued to drive financial inclusion across Africa, reaching 77 million customers, up from 66 million in the previous year. Egypt and Tanzania achieved high growth rates in FY25 delivering better than anticipated performance, enabling us to surpass our financial inclusion target of connecting 75 million customers to these services by 31 March 2026. These efforts are helping customers, their families, and communities to build greater economic prosperity 1 . Mobile money customers
Supporting our customers to digitalise Supporting SMEs to digitalise SMEs are pivotal to both European and African economies. In the EU, SMEs represent over 99% of all businesses 2 . Collectively, these SMEs contribute approximately €5.4 trillion to the EU economy, with micro-sized enterprises accounting for around €1.8 trillion of this value 3 . In Africa, SMEs account for approximately 90% of all registered businesses and contribute approximately 50% to the total GDP of sub-Saharan African countries 4 . However, it is important to note that these figures can vary across different African nations. Despite their economic significance, many SMEs face challenges in accessing the digital tools, skills, and resources needed to compete in an increasingly digital marketplace. Digital advancements like AI present a major opportunity for SMEs to enhance decision-making, automate processes and compete more effectively with larger enterprises. However, barriers such as limited resources and digital skills gaps continue to slow adoption. We are committed to supporting SMEs in their digital transformation by providing tailored services and expertise. Through initiatives such as V-Hub, we offer essential online resources and one-to-one guidance, helping SMEs improve efficiency, enhance customer engagement, and drive innovation. In Europe, we actively track the number of SMEs receiving digitalisation support from Vodafone, providing measurable impact. In Africa, we focus on delivering dedicated value propositions designed to meet the unique needs of SMEs, enabling them to leverage digital solutions for growth and resilience. By equipping SMEs with the tools, knowledge, and support necessary to navigate the digital landscape, we help drive economic sustainability, strengthen local economies, and ensure that SMEs remain competitive in an evolving digital world.
Supporting public sector services to digitalise Digital government services are essential for building more inclusive and safer societies. In Europe, our extensive infrastructure enables us to collaborate effectively with central governments, local authorities, and healthcare organisations to deliver large-scale digital solutions across the public sector – a key pillar of Vodafone’s commercial strategy. One example of the benefits of large-scale digital solutions can be seen with Vodafone Egypt’s partnership with the government to transform the healthcare sector through digitalisation. As the primary technology partner for Egypt’s comprehensive health insurance project, Vodafone Egypt’s digital solutions have been implemented in 314 hospitals, benefiting over six million patients. This initiative aims to extend services to more than 26 million citizens, approximately 22% of Egypt’s population, in the coming years. Notably, at Ain Shams University, one of the teaching hospitals reduced its average patient waiting times by 32% and cut re-admission rates by nearly 63% after adopting Vodafone’s digital solutions. The hospital also transitioned to nearly 100% paperless operations and saved over 50 million Egyptian pounds by integrating digital services into daily processes. Investing in digitalisation is crucial for enhancing public services globally. Vodafone is actively developing methods to measure the scale and impact of its contributions across public sector organisations in our operating markets.
Financial inclusion customers (million)
% of service revenue
% of penetration base
South Africa Tanzania Mozambique Egypt
3.7 –
–
11.5 39% 63% 11.4 8% 28% 6.0 24% 73% 6.6 21% 49% 0.9 20% 75%
Democratic Republic of the Congo Vodafone Group Lesotho
40.1 – Safaricom (Kenya and Ethiopia) 37.0 43% 83% –
Notes: 1. GSMA, 2023. 2 WEF, 2023. 3. Statista, 2024. 4. WEF, 2023.
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