OPay’s valuation nears $3bn

The Chinese-owned, Nigeria-focused mobile payments giant has grown its user base 4x in five years and saw over 60% revenue growth in 2023.

Author

Anthony Miclet
May 01, 2024

Good day, and welcome to another Daba weekly newsletter!

Luno, Zignaly, and VALR are among the latest companies to receive crypto licenses in South Africa, as one of Africa's economic powerhouses embraces digital assets, signaling a progressive stance towards cryptocurrency regulation and adoption.

In other top stories from the past week:

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ICYMI: Check Out Exciting Updates on the Daba App! 📱

Hey Daba Community,

We're thrilled to announce some major updates to our mobile application! We've been listening closely to your feedback and have been hard at work to bring you a faster, more reliable experience with some fantastic new features.

Here's what's new:

💰 Wallet - Deposit and Withdrawal: Now you can easily deposit and withdraw funds in CFA Franc, USD, and Euro right from your Daba wallet! Whether it's via debit card, bank transfer, or Mobile Money, managing your finances just got a whole lot simpler.

＄ Currency Display: Choose your preferred currency to view your balance and wallet status. With options including USD, Euro, and CFA Franc, personalizing your financial experience has never been easier.

📈 BRVM Stock Exchange: Dive into the world of stock market investment with ease! You can now invest in stocks listed on the BRVM directly from our app, with an automated order placement process for seamless transactions.

🐞 Bug Fixes: We've squashed pesky bugs reported by you, ensuring smoother navigation and enhanced stability within the mobile app.

With these updates, we're making it easier than ever for you to manage your investments and financial transactions on the go.

Tap the button below to check them out now and stay tuned for more exciting features coming your way soon! 🚀

Happy investing!

Here are last week’s top stories

Risk appetite

Bitcoin price sinks over withdrawals, down 22% from its all-time high

BTC has been trending downward since its all-time high above $74,000 in March and is now below $58,000 as of the time of writing—as crypto liquidations in the past 48 hours crossed $300m and ahead of the US FOMC announcement slated for Wednesday.

Oil prices lost more than $1 a barrel early this week as Israel ceasefire talks in Cairo tempered fears of a wider Middle East conflict, while US inflation data dimmed the prospect of imminent interest rate cuts. Brent crude futures for June settled at $85 on Tuesday.

Gold prices are softening as traders gear up for Fed monetary policy decision, amid mixed signals from the US economy and an improvement in risk appetite. In Africa, equities are largely positive, save for the deceleration in the once-high-flying Nigerian equities.

Highest yield

Servair Abidjan to pay shareholders $4.1m in market-best dividend

Servair, a company operating at Abidjan airport, is distributing its entire net profit of 1.34 billion FCFA in 2023, along with a portion of its reserves, as dividends to shareholders, totaling 2.5bn FCFA (over $4m). 

After-tax, the net dividend per share stands at 206 FCFA, yielding an impressive 15.92% based on the share price of 1,295 FCFA as of April 26, 2024, making it the highest dividend yield on the regional BRVM market over the past two years. 

The company had experienced a loss of 985 million FCFA in 2020 but bounced back to profitability in 2023, reporting a 5.28% increase in profit. Interested people can access the Servair stock and more high dividend yield options on the Daba application.

Payments boom

OPay’s valuation nears $3bn on growing digital payments in Nigeria

Estimated between $2.7-$2.9bn, leading Nigerian fintech OPay is reportedly nearing the valuation of Flutterwave, the largest payments startup on the African continent with a last known value of $3bn. 

With a suite of mobile money and payment services catering to the unbanked and underbanked population, OPay rapidly grew its user base fourfold and recorded over 60% revenue growth in 2023. 

This surge underscores the continent's burgeoning mobile money and payments sector, which McKinsey projects could reach $40 billion in revenues by 2025, with transaction volumes reaching 188 billion.

Headline roundup

A summary of the major business, tech, and finance headlines of the past week.

Macro & Markets

VC Funding & Startups

Other Deals & Expansion

Funds & Accelerators

Startup Opportunities

Discover funding and accelerator opportunities to boost your startup's growth.

Our insight for the week

Get more context into events shaping Africa’s economic landscape.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest levels of global mobile money adoption and a GSMA report has revealed that mobile money helped increase the region's economic growth (GDP) by over $150bn or 3.7% between 2013-2022.

In East and West Africa where mobile money is most used, GDP grew even more - by 5.9% and 4.1% respectively by 2022.

Globally, countries with mobile money services saw $600bn more GDP growth from 2013-2022 than those without, equal to a 1.5% GDP increase from mobile money.

West Africa, especially Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal saw registered mobile money accounts double from 2013-2023, making it a leader in adoption. 

Over a third of new global accounts in 2023 were from West Africa.

The growth was driven by enabling regulations and a shift to digital payments, international remittances, and merchant payments. Competition from non-telecom providers also drove adoption in West Africa.

In the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), over 110m new mobile money accounts from 2018-2022 boosted financial inclusion from 56% to 71%.

Mobile money is seen as achieving 15 of the 17 UN SDGs by driving inclusion. As the market matures, more providers offer credit, savings, and insurance alongside payments.

Credit is the most popular added service, with a 73% yearly increase in 2023. This empowers underserved groups like women and rural populations to save more via mobile money accounts.

However, financial literacy programs are needed to ensure safe and informed usage as mobile money becomes more sophisticated.

That’s it for this week. Next Frontier is sent once weekly. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.

If you haven’t, you can also download the Daba app to get daily bite-sized insights into African economies, industry and country reports, and access investment opportunities.

Catch you next week!