Bharti Airtel’s active customer base of mobile money users in Africa increased to 8.9 million in the three months to the end of December 2015.

Christian de Faria, MD and CEO of the African operations, paid tribute to the performance of Airtel Money in the company’s Q3 results, saying how “pleased” he was with it.

Bharti Airtel may be the largest operator in India, which generates three quarters of its revenue, but Africa drive its mobile money programme.

The number of active Airtel Money users grew by 44.5 per cent over the past year to reach nearly nine million.

The total number of transactions during the quarter increased by 84 per cent to 293 million as compared to 160 million in the corresponding quarter last year.

Total value of transactions on the Airtel Money platform has seen a strong growth of 81 per cent to $4.9 billion in the current quarter as compared to $2.7 billion in the corresponding quarter last year.

However, the operator did not reveal the revenue generated by that large volume of transactions, which would be a significantly lower figure. Often operators rely on mobile money for its “stickiness” among users rather than as a revenue generator in itself.