19 July 2019

Digital financial services platform Wari has teamed up with African smartphone manufacturer Mara Phones as part of its strategy to increase its presence on the continent. 

Wari’s services will be preloaded onto Mara devices and the former will bundle its services with the Mara Phone to all its clients.

“We are extremely excited about this collaboration and we expect to see Wari increase its presence and penetration with the bundling of the Mara Phone,” said Mara Phones’ chief executive officer Ashish Thakkar. 

Kabirou Mbodje, chief executive officer at Wari, added that the partnership was a good opportunity for Wari to diversify its offer and facilitate the utilisation of the MyWari app.

“The Mara Phones are the first 100% African built phones and we should be proud of this achievement. As two African champions, we must support each other and multiply African partnerships to create value and increase economic growth,” said Mbodje. “Africa is 54 countries. We’re talking about a billion people, a huge continent, thirty currencies. Why it is not prosperous is because we’re not integrated. We are small countries with no effect on a global scale. If we don’t aggregate those markets together, we will not have leverage,” he added.

The agreement was signed in Paris at the VivaTech 2019 event.