M-KOPA Expands to Nigeria, Appoints former SafeBoda Country Director its New GM

Connected asset financing platform M-KOPA, has expanded its operations to Nigeria. The move into the Nigerian market the company says signals its focus on offering millions of underbanked customers across Sub-Saharan Africa access to life-enhancing products and services such as smartphones, solar lighting, energy-efficient televisions, fridges and digital financial services via its financing platform.

To lead the Nigeria team, M-KOPA has named Babajide Duroshola as the new General Manager. Babajide joins M-KOPA from motorcycle ride-hailing platform SafeBoda Nigeria, where he was responsible for the overall business as Country Director.

His career before SafeBoda included Community Manager, Technical Talent at Andela. As Country General Manager, Babajide will be responsible for leading M-KOPA Nigeria with a rapidly growing team of 50 people, expanding partnerships and scaling operations across the country.

The launch in Nigeria comes after 20,000 Device Pilot in Lagos and is rapidly expanding into states across the country, including Oyo. It has partnered with Airtel and Samsung to enable access to smartphones and broader digital connectivity. Through M-KOPA’s pay-as-you-go financing model, customers have instant access to quality 4G smartphone handsets, while building ownership over time through flexible micropayments.

“Nigeria is an exciting market for M-KOPA to be expanding into. It presents an opportunity for us to bring the power of our financing platform to serve more underbanked customers, who otherwise would not readily have access to smartphone devices. Additionally, through our strategic partnerships and end-to-end solution, we are best positioned to address mobile operators’ key challenge to convert consumers from 2G/3G networks to 4G.” Mayur Patel, M-KOPA’s Chief Commercial Officer, said.

“We’ve had great success in our pilot by combining the best of what we’ve built as a multi-market company with a willingness to localise and adapt our offering to the unique needs of Nigerian consumers. As we scale our presence across the country, we are excited to welcome Babajide on board. He is an exceptional leader with broad cross-functional experience and the ideal candidate to drive the growth of our team in Nigeria as we expand M-KOPA’s footprint on the continent.”

Founded in 2011, M-KOPA pioneered and kick-started the wider pay-as-you-go solar market in Kenya. In 2019, M-KOPA launched smartphone financing and has since expanded to one of the world’s most advanced connected asset financing platforms. To date, the company has provided over $400 million in financing that has enabled over 1 million customers to access their products and services, and sold over 1 million PAYG solar systems and 500,000 smartphones to customers in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.

M-KOPA is looking to expand its talent pool and is currently recruiting for a number of roles including Android Developers, Back-end Engineers and Data Scientists. Available employment opportunities can be found here. 

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