Paper

The Value of Pay-As-You-Go Solar for Mobile Operators

Findings from multi-country, multi-operator study in Africa

This report provides the first multi-country analysis to quantify the value of synergy between mobile money and the PAYG solar for the mobile industry. This was done by looking at mobile usage data from cohorts of PAYG customers starting six months before, and through the first six months of making solar home system payments, and comparing this same analysis to a control group (not using PAYG solar). Five mobile operators from Uganda, Rwanda, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Zambia worked with GSMA to provide aggregated and anonymized mobile money and GSM data in order to measure the commercial value that the PAYG solar industry has for the mobile industry.

The key findings from this analysis suggest that:

  • PAYG solar customers show significantly increased mobile money usage, beyond just solar payments.
  • PAYG solar drives adoption of mobile money.
  • PAYG solar customers yield increased overall revenue for mobile operators.
  • PAYG solar demonstrates the case for strengthening and broadening collaboration.

About this Publication

By Nicolas Snel, George Kibala Bauer, Ilana Cohen & Cat Morais
Published