Why Has M-Pesa Been Less Successful in India Than in Kenya?

1. Why has M-Pesa been less successful in India than in Kenya?

1. The reason M-Pesa works well in Kenya and Tanzania and Afghansitan is that in those countries, the mobile operators were given a relatively free hand to launch the service, unbothered by bureaucracy. While in India, the central bank has labelled mobile money banking-rather than a telecoms- product, and therefore requiring strict rules. For example, any mobile company wanting to enter the market must partner with a bank. All these strict will slow down the speed inhibit the depth of mobile money service can go.
2. Since it is actually relying on banking system in India and Telcom, it is possible to fail if those two industries do not provide enough support.
3. Airtel Money is the first to launch this service, and Vodafone, second largest one already teamed up with two largest Bank in India, making the situation different from Kenya, where M-Pesa is the first one doing this service. Therefore, I might not be easy to get advantage resource to develop similar strategy in India.
4. Basic M-pesa service does not provide good service in complex saving and investment product, which might hinder the growth in India.
5. Cashing out is mainly usage of mobile money in Kenya. However, there is widespread lack of basic ID document in India.

Back to our strategy definition: defining a company’s position, making trade-offs, and forging fit among activates. More specifically, in our case, the M-pesa does not have well defined company position, different activities from other competitors. Besides, it does not have plan about the trade-offs so that it will be difficult for other competitors to imitate. So far, all the activities M-pesa plans to do is pretty similar to its competitors in India. Therefore, even though M-pesa can perform more efficient, it is lack of sustainability due to lack of clear strategy. Last but not least, M-pesa does cultivate its internal synergy activities to reinforce its strategy, if any. For example, if is is focusing on cashing out, then it should focus more about how to enable users to withdraw money safely even lack of the ID document in India.