More and more Orange subscribers in Africa and the Middle East are signing up for its mobile money service, according to its 2014 results.

While the operator’s overall number of customers in the region grew by 12 per cent to 97.5 million (end-December 2014), the Orange Money base delivered a growth rate of 51 per cent. The total number of money customers is 12.6 million.

Orange Money is predominately offered in the group’s Africa markets. It is one of a number of operators targeting users in the developing world with similar services.

By comparison, Telenor’s Easypaisa joint venture in Pakistan has 13 million customers, although the group’s mobile money services in other countries have relatively low numbers.

Other leading operator groups also offer money services. Millicom has 9.5 million users, Vodacom reached 7.6 million and Bharti Airtel notched up 6.2 million (all end-December 2014 figures), according to their most recent results.

Some leading operators are still to report their quarterly figures, including MTN. The South Africa-based operator will report end-December figures in early March.