Vodacom Tanzania, the country’s leading cellular network company, and Oryx Oil Tanzania, a market leader in fuels, LPG and lubricants distribution, have entered a new partnership which brings the payment service M-Pesa to fuel stations.
The partners say the service will enable their customers to use Vodacom M-Pesa’s Lipa kwa Simu platform to pay for fuel. The service will be available in all 52 Oryx fuel stations countrywide.
Through the Lipa kwa Simu (‘pay by phone’ in Swahili) service customers can use an M-Pesa app QR code, bank accounts and other mobile money wallets to make payments. There is a five percent instant cashback on all payments done using M-Pesa. The partners suggest that this service, in addition to cash payment, is meant to increase customer convenience while strengthening the financial payment system.
Vodacom Tanzania’s subscriber base was about 15.5 million in the year ending 31 March 2020, giving the company a market share of about 32.8 percent.
In May Vodacom Tanzania’s M-Pesa revenue was reported to have increased by 7.4 percent, contributing 35 percent to service revenue, up 2.2 percent, driven by increased transactions per customer. Vodacom has 10.1 million M-Pesa users.
The company says it will continue to expand the M-Pesa ecosystem with more services to meet real-time and continuously evolving customer needs, a commitment underlined by the recent Oryx deal.
Oryx Energies is one of Africa’s largest and longest-established independent providers of oil and gas products and services. It sources, supplies, stores and distributes the oil and gas products needed by consumers, businesses and maritime operations across sub-Saharan Africa.
