Safaricom’s current merger of the M-PESA and MySafaricom apps tells you precisely the place the corporate needs to go. The telco clearly needs to tidy up its digital home, and actually, I like the thought.
Safaricom is not only a cellular community operator. It’s funds, financial savings, loans, insurance coverage, leisure, agriculture, IoT, county companies, gadget financing, enterprise instruments, and half of Kenya’s digital life sitting inside one inexperienced ecosystem. In that context, a Tremendous App is sensible. If any Kenyan firm can justify placing many companies inside one app, it’s Safaricom.
The factor is that the housekeeping remains to be removed from completed. The corporate nonetheless has so many different apps, a few of which you’ve in all probability by no means heard of.
The M-PESA app is not listed as “M-PESA” in app shops. As a substitute, Safaricom upgraded and renamed it to My OneApp, describing it as one place for M-PESA steadiness, airtime, information, SMS, Bonga factors, funds, borrowing, investing, insurance coverage, house fibre, assist, Scan to Pay, AI Pay, and NFC funds. That’s the Tremendous App dream in a single sentence.
However the way in which Safaricom dealt with the transition was the issue. As a substitute of launching My OneApp as a recent standalone app, giving customers time emigrate, and later phasing out the older M-PESA app, the corporate merely remodeled the prevailing M-PESA app into My OneApp. That call made the shift really feel pressured, and when the bugs began exhibiting up, customers had no clear fallback from the official app shops.
That’s the place the broader app-store image turns into attention-grabbing.
On Google Play, Safaricom has almost 20 apps listed beneath Safaricom PLC. On Apple’s App Retailer, the listing is far leaner, with My OneApp, MySafaricom App, M-PESA for Enterprise, Baze, MyCounty, DigiFarm App, Safaricom IoT SIM Administration, and Safaricom Sensible Water Supervisor showing beneath Safaricom Restricted.
I don’t assume it is because Apple is stricter about what it permits into the App Retailer. Apple will be tough, sure, however this appears extra like an in-house enterprise choice. Kenya is overwhelmingly an Android market. StatCounter information for March 2026 places Android at 93.06% of Kenya’s cellular OS market, whereas iOS sits at simply 6.48%.
So, for a few of Safaricom’s area of interest apps, there could merely be little business incentive to construct and preserve iOS variations. However for these curious to know, here’s what these apps truly do.
My OneApp is the brand new centrepiece. It combines core M-PESA capabilities with telco companies comparable to airtime, information, SMS, Bonga factors, Dwelling Fibre funds, assist instruments, and newer fee choices like Scan to Pay. That is the place Safaricom needs atypical prospects to dwell digitally.MySafaricom remains to be round, which is already awkward as a result of My OneApp is meant to cut back app litter. The app provides prospects entry to Safaricom services, together with M-PESA ship cash, account administration, information bundles, airtime, statements, and different customer-care capabilities. It’s obtainable on each Android and iOS.M-PESA for Enterprise serves retailers. It lets companies monitor collections and disbursements, view statements, monitor money-in and money-out tendencies, pay prospects, withdraw funds, pay suppliers, and handle until exercise. This one deserves to stay separate as a result of service provider workflows are completely different from atypical client M-PESA use.MySafaricom Accomplice is extra of an operational app. Safaricom describes it as an enhancement of the Jiandikishe app, constructed for gross sales and after-sales companies. It seems on Android, however not within the leaner Apple App Retailer listing.Baze App is Safaricom’s leisure platform. It affords on-demand and dwell content material, together with quick movies, music, podcasts, TV, radio, comedy, dwell occasions, and different native leisure. Baze is on the market on each Android and iOS.ESA is an employee-facing platform. Safaricom says it’s constructed to enhance communication and engagement between the corporate and its workers. That explains why most prospects have in all probability by no means heard of it. It’s at present Android-only as a result of, let’s be trustworthy, no Kenyan employer is giving out iPhones for work.MySacco is for SACCO finance administration. It lets SACCO members examine balances, apply for loans, export statements, and handle cooperative-related monetary exercise. In contrast to ESA, I don’t get why this took an Android-first method in Kenya. Are there no SACCO members utilizing iPhones?MyCounty is Safaricom’s county companies app. It’s meant to provide residents and companies one entry level for county funds and companies throughout Kenya’s 47 counties, together with issues like parking, enterprise permits, land charges, and market cess. This one is on the market on each Android and iOS.Uzima is a well being, security, and wellbeing instrument. Safaricom says it tracks certifications for specialists working in high-risk jobs and helps its “zero hurt” agenda. That is clearly not aimed on the common Safaricom buyer, and is proscribed to Android.DigiSoc is for Safaricom area engineers. It provides them visibility into web site alarms, together with websites down, sectors down, environmental points, alarm causes, alarm standing, and web site areas by way of Google Maps. It’s principally a community operations instrument, not a client app, that’s why it’s solely on Android.Safaricom IoT SIM Administration helps companies handle Safaricom IoT SIM playing cards. It affords dashboards for SIM standing, utilization, activation tendencies, SIM particulars, product activation or suspension, messaging, and role-based consumer administration. This app is on the market on each Android and iOS.Mtandao is a community suggestions and diagnostics app. It data feedback, sign power, location information, subscriber data, velocity assessments, and gadget community metrics, then sends that information to Safaricom to assist optimize community efficiency. That one sounds genuinely helpful, though possibly not one thing each buyer will set up casually.Lipa Mdogo Mdogo helps Safaricom’s smartphone financing product. It lets customers handle telephone mortgage accounts, make funds, examine balances, monitor what they owe, obtain reminders, and call buyer care. The service itself lets prospects purchase smartphones by way of day by day instalments, but it surely solely helps Android.DigiFarm Agent App is for DigiFarm brokers. It lets them monitor their exercise and progress whereas driving buyer acquisition and conversions. This differs from the broader DigiFarm client platform, which focuses on giving farmers entry to data, inputs, credit score, and markets.Safaricom Sensible Water Supervisor is an IoT water-monitoring app. It really works with sensible water meters to point out utilization throughout areas, handle thresholds, detect leaks, and generate historic studies. That is obtainable on each Android and iOS.DigiFarm Collections is aimed toward agri-MSMEs and retailers. It helps them handle the gathering of farm produce from registered smallholder farmers, making it one other agriculture-focused instrument sitting in Safaricom’s bigger digital companies stack. As anticipated, that is an Android-only app.VybStreamz is one other leisure app, however it’s positioned in another way from Baze. Safaricom describes it as an leisure, studying, and gaming hub that brings companion content material into one place and helps customers handle subscriptions. It’s obtainable on Android, however not iOS.Safaricom Telematics is for fleet administration. It affords real-time asset monitoring, driver behaviour monitoring, gas monitoring, service scheduling, geofencing alerts, and analytics meant to enhance fleet productiveness and cut back prices. That is clearly constructed for companies, not atypical pay as you go subscribers checking whether or not their Tunukiwa bundle nonetheless exists. That’s why you gained’t discover it on iOS.
this listing, Safaricom’s app downside will not be merely that it has too many apps. A few of these apps completely ought to stay separate as a result of they serve companies, workers, brokers, engineers, farmers, fleet managers, and IoT prospects. Folding DigiSoc or Telematics into My OneApp would make no sense.
The actual subject is consumer-facing overlap.
My OneApp, MySafaricom, Baze, VybStreamz, MyCounty, Lipa Mdogo Mdogo, DigiFarm, and components of Sensible Water all communicate to Safaricom’s wider ambition to turn out to be the on a regular basis digital layer for Kenyans. That’s the reason My OneApp issues. It isn’t only a renamed M-PESA app. It’s Safaricom admitting that its ecosystem has turn out to be too huge to maintain scattering throughout separate icons.
However the transition additionally reveals why execution issues. A Tremendous App solely works if it feels less complicated, not if it turns into a pressured migration wrapped in bugs and confusion.
Safaricom has began the housekeeping. Now it wants to complete the job correctly.
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