GSMA’s tally of mobile money transactions for 2025 exceeds $2.1 trillion worldwide. The figure appears in its State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026. Released on 24 March 2026, the research describes a growing payments industry. For investment research, the next question is how that activity translates into company revenue.
The score and the event being measured
The timing problem is visible in live sport. When comparing football live betting options, a selection’s period and accepted price belong beside the score. A full-match selection and one covering only the remaining minutes can use different starting points.
Suppose the score in a fictional football match is 2–1 at the 80-minute mark. A full-time result selection concerns the winner or draw after normal time, including stoppages. A selection covering goals in the remaining period concerns a narrower event. A 2–1 finish would give the leading side the win and leave the remaining-period goal total at zero.
A selection described as ‘to qualify’ may also include extra time or a shoot-out. Its conditions need checking separately from a normal-time result, even when both selections concern the same cup tie.
A cricket scorecard can show the runs from one innings as well as which side eventually wins the match. An innings-total selection and a match-winner selection use those separate results. The specified innings and settlement conditions determine which record applies. Available selections depend on the fixture and the applicable terms.
The accepted odds also need a timestamp. A price displayed after a score update does not establish the price accepted earlier. The confirmed record is the reference for that selection.
Reading the information correctly does not guarantee any result; any gambling should remain within a fixed spending and time limit.
Registered accounts and regular use tell different stories
By the end of 2025, the registered account total had reached 2.3 billion; the report’s 30-day active measure stood at 593 million. These are account totals, so neither figure should be relabelled as a count of individual customers.
The gap matters when examining a company’s expansion plans. A presentation might emphasise registrations, while its revenue forecast depends on regular transactions. The forecast then needs an explanation of how registrations are expected to become active accounts, and how much activity those accounts would produce.
It is also possible for an existing account to become busier without any new registration. A company reporting both measures allows a reader to separate expansion of its account base from deeper use of its service.
Comparisons between companies need matching definitions. A monthly active account figure cannot be compared directly with another company’s quarterly measure. The reporting window belongs beside the number.
The money processed and the amount billed
A large payment passing through a system can make its transaction total look impressive. The company operating that system may retain only a fee. A useful set of accounts would show how much of the payment flow became revenue for the business.
Take a made-up month in which a processor handles payments worth 100,000 units. Assume its contract allows it to retain a fee of 0.5% across that volume. The resulting revenue would be 500 units, before operating expenses. This is an arithmetic illustration, with no claim about prevailing industry charges.
In a second month, processed payments reach 120,000 units, and the contracted fee is now 0.4%. That leaves 480 units of revenue, 20 less than in the first month. The lower fee outweighs the extra payment volume.
A contract could set a monthly minimum, a flat charge or a fee that changes once volume passes an agreed threshold. Research needs the relevant terms before treating transaction growth as evidence of revenue growth. Subcontractor charges also matter when a company presents a gross figure that includes amounts passed to other providers.
Merchant payments add a different customer relationship
The GSMA report puts merchant payments at $155 billion in 2025, up 42% over the previous year. This creates a specific area for company research: the systems connecting a sale, a payment and the merchant’s records.
A shop needs to know which invoice a payment belongs to and whether its records agree with the processor’s statement. Matching each incoming payment to an invoice is also work that a merchant might use software to simplify.
The supplier’s invoice could contain a processing charge, an account fee or a subscription. Someone researching the company would need the breakdown to see which charges depend on payment activity and which continue at a fixed rate.
A useful company disclosure would distinguish:
- The value of payments handled
- The revenue recognised from those payments
- Subscription revenue reported separately
- Charges paid to other service providers
- Costs of maintaining customer integrations
The industry total establishes the scale of merchant activity. Company accounts establish which part of that activity a particular business actually serves.
Subscription contracts still need a cost explanation
Monthly and annual contracts let software providers generate subscription revenue. What those contracts cost to service is harder to read from the billing calendar alone.
For one client, the standard product may be ready without any customisation. Another may require a custom connection to its accounting system, regular changes and extensive technical support. Identical subscription prices would therefore describe different workloads.
Suppose, in a fictional example, ten clients each have a contract covering the month at 100 units. Together, those contracts generate 1,000 units of subscription revenue. One contract ends before the next month, leaving nine and a monthly total of 900. To understand that change, a reader would need to see which agreements started, continued or ended during each reporting period.
Upfront implementation work deserves separate attention. An initial setup payment may cover a substantial amount of staff time and should not automatically be projected into every following month. Separating setup fees from subscriptions makes the continuing business easier to assess.
Event records create another kind of workload
Live sports services illustrate why a data supplier’s workload can differ from its payment volume. A match can produce many score updates while generating no new payment transaction. For the supplier, the commercial question is how those updates are counted on the customer’s invoice and what the contract allows it to charge.
A reader following cricket live may want an updated score after each delivery. For the data supplier, the agreement needs to say whether a fixture or each request for an update is the billing unit.
Corrections also belong in the agreement, including how revised entries are supplied and which version a customer receives.
What the next company report could establish
The GSMA figures give researchers a dated reference for industry activity during 2025. A company reporting results for a different financial year needs to identify its own period before its growth figures can be compared with that reference.
The next useful evidence would come from the company itself. Does its transaction volume cover completed payments or include requests that were later cancelled? Are subscriptions separated from implementation work? How many of the reported customers are already using the service, and how many have only signed an agreement?
Those disclosures would let a researcher compare the earlier forecast with invoices, costs and cash collected in the period. A rise in transactions could then be linked to the amount the business actually retained. The price of the investment remains another part of the decision: the same company accounts can support different assessments at different purchase prices.
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