July 4, 2025
How Selling Airtime Top-Ups in Africa Could Skyrocket Your Revenue
Africa’s mobile phone market is growing faster than anywhere else in the world. Discover how your business can tap into this lucrative opportunity and boost revenue by offering mobile recharge services across Africa.
If you are a player in the global mobile top-up market, you cannot afford to ignore the gold mine that is the African market.
Mobile phone penetration is increasing worldwide, and Africa is no exception. The number of mobile phone users in Africa will hit the 500 million mark in 2025, according to Business Insider Africa.
If we focus exclusively on growth, Africa is the fastest-growing mobile phone market with an annual growth rate of 65%, which is twice as much as that of second-placed Asia.
Nigeria leads the way in the number of mobile subscriptions with 219.3 million active mobile subscriptions, while South Africa takes the lead on mobile phone penetration rate at 195.4% of the population.
Africans are not only purchasing mobile phones, but they are also actively using them.
Over 74% of web traffic in Africa comes from mobile phones, fourteen percentage points higher than the global average (60%), according to Statista, a popular statistics portal. That is, an average African is more likely to access the internet through a mobile phone than through other devices.
Similarly, 14 African countries have an internet penetration rate that is higher than the global average (68%, according to the latest World Bank data), according to data provided by Statista.
Also, increasing financial inclusion efforts by governments and fintech companies have seen more Africans actively use mobile phones to access financial services. There are over 1.1 billion mobile money accounts in Africa, more than half of the global total, according to GSMA, an association of mobile operators and other industry stakeholders.
The African mobile money market was valued at $804.9 million in 2024 by iMarc Group, a market research company. It is expected to grow by a CAGR of 18.31% to become a $ 3.93 billion market by 2033
Furthermore, the smartphone market in Africa has shown persistent growth over the years. In Q1 2025, manufacturers shipped 19.4 million units of smartphones into Africa, a 6% year-on-year growth, according to Omdia, a market research and advisory firm.
“While other regions saw weaker demand for entry-level devices, Africa benefited from resilient offline retail activity and renewed vendor focus on broad-based market coverage,” they noted.
Interestingly, Q1, 2025 marked the eighth consecutive quarter (since Q2, 2023) that smartphone shipments to Africa have been increasing.
Why are all these statistics important to you as a mobile top-up or recharge provider?
There are at least three reasons:
- First, high growth of mobile phone penetration means that a growing number of Africans require airtime top-up. Many of them still rely on making calls and sending SMS messages through their phone networks rather than messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, among others.
One reason for this is that internet penetration is not yet as high as the global average in many African countries. This is especially true in rural areas. Since African communities are closely-knit, the need to communicate with family and friends in rural areas still requires significant expenses on airtime recharge.
A second reason is that many find these phone networks to be more reliable than the internet.
Also, for both reasons, many Africans still access mobile banking services (especially money transfers) using airtime through mobile communication technology, like the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), that doesn’t require an internet connection.
About 90% of all digital transactions in Africa used this technology as far back as 2023, according to GSMA.
- Second, many Africans use airtime to purchase mobile data plans. While there are many platforms where they can purchase data services directly, doing it through airtime tends to provide two advantages.
One, they get to enjoy bonuses on the airtime purchase (before using it to buy data plans), which they would not get if they had purchased data directly.
Second, this method offers more data plan alternatives, which makes it more likely that they will find the one that perfectly meets their needs.
- Third, airtime and data recharge remain valuable gifts in Africa. Family and friends purchase airtime and data plans for each other; TV and radio stations use them to reward viewers; research companies employ them to compensate survey respondents; even those in the diaspora send airtime and data to their loved ones at home.
Thus, demand for airtime top-ups and data recharge will continue to be high.
Are you looking forward to increasing your revenue by selling airtime top-ups in Africa? Book a demo today with zendit to learn how to integrate our mobile top-up API with your mobile and web platforms.
How to provide mobile top-up services in Africa
As a business seeking to increase your revenue by exploring the global mobile top-up market, you will need access to a platform that can connect you with mobile operators across the globe.
This access to global mobile operators will ensure that you can meet the needs of your customers across the globe, and not just in your country. With your tentacles extended in this way, you can make more money from your mobile recharge business.
As a mobile top-up API, zendit provides you access to the global mobile top-up market by connecting you to operators across the globe. This includes Africa, where mobile phone penetration, smartphone penetration, and airtime usage are growing rapidly.
Below is an overview of the top African mobile operators we support and the countries where they operate.
zendit’s Africa Network
Making maximum use of the African market
We have seen that individual mobile phone owners in Africa still use a lot of airtime. This in itself makes airtime top-up a viable business idea in the region.
But there are even more opportunities to explore:
- Businesses using airtime top-ups as rewards: Many businesses use mobile recharges as a form of reward for employees (all types of businesses), customers (all types of businesses), listeners (radio stations), survey respondents (research organizations, schools), quiz participants (radio stations, schools), among others.
By forming partnerships with these companies, you can have a consistent stream of mobile recharge orders
- Airtime gifts as a form of remittances: You can also target Africans in the diaspora since many of them still give money to their family and friends back at home through airtime top-ups.
- Foreign businesses with workers in Africa: Foreign businesses that employ Africans as remote workers may also love to reward them with airtime top-ups. You can target these businesses as well.
- Migrant workers in Africa: Migrants who work for Africa-based companies will also need mobile recharges to enjoy their time on the continent.
The market is already there. What you need is a platform that can connect you to the relevant mobile operators and a marketing strategy that will put you in the mind of potential customers, starting with your current customer base.
Why integrate zendit’s mobile top-up API
With zendit’s mobile top-up API, you can offer mobile top-ups from all 36 operators listed above to customers across Africa. Our goal is to ensure you are not leaving any money on the table.
In addition to the wide scope of operators and products, you can enjoy the following benefits with our mobile top-up API:
- Easy integration: We ensure that you can easily integrate our API into your e-commerce mobile and web platforms.
Furthermore, our API is platform agnostic, which means you won’t have any compatibility issues integrating it into any app or environment (iOS, Android, PHP, Node.js, etc).
- Instant delivery: We instantly deliver mobile top-ups purchased to the recipient. Given the importance of airtime to many people in Africa, we ensure they don’t have to wait to get value for their money.
- Customization: While we have standardized mobile recharge amounts, you can customize your offerings to fit the specific needs of your customers.
Also, while we suggest a selling price and profit margin for each item (based on the competitive landscape), we give you the freedom to override our suggestion and set what you are comfortable with.
- Secure transactions: We use the latest security protocols to keep our platform safe and secure. You can be sure that your money and data are well protected, irrespective of the payment method you use (credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, and other digital payments).
- Reporting: We provide summary reports, transaction reports, and account statements so you can keep a tab on your purchases, sales, and profits.
The summary section highlights the total number of transactions, sales, profits, and profit margin for a given period.
The transaction section goes into further details about all the financial transactions that occurred within the chosen timeframe.
The account statement section is like a bank statement showing your debit and credit transactions and current balance at a given point.
- Flexible options: Our standardized mobile recharge amounts are flexible enough to accommodate the needs of low and heavy-airtime users.
For example, customers of Togocel in Togo can purchase as little as 1,000 XOF worth of airtime or as much as 45,000 XOF worth.
- Scalable API: We design our API to adjust to the needs of users. As your business booms and you make more requests, the API will adapt to your needs.
- Robust security measures: We provide first-rate security best practices that will protect you as you integrate our API.
You can regenerate API keys if you believe the former key has been compromised, whitelist IP addresses to connect your integration with trusted hosts, and secure your product catalog by disabling products you don’t intend to sell.
Also, you can use ShieldWall to authenticate transactions and verify the authenticity of webhooks you use in the integration process
Are you ready to capitalize on the significant airtime top-up usage in Africa? Register for zendit now or book a demo to see how our product works and how it can help you increase your revenue.
