Econet ruling the roost in mobile network market, nears 10 million subscribers
By Delicious Mathuthu
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe continues to command the mobile network market with the latest Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) Sector Performance report for the last quarter of 2022 recently released indicating a 2.9 percent increase in subscriptions against declines for its competitors NetOne and Telecel.
Of the 14,3 million mobile network subscribers in Zimbabwe, Econet currently boasts of almost 10 million subscribers followed far below by NetOne with almost 4 million and Telecel trailing with almost 390 thousand subscribers.
The report shows that Econet, compared to the 2022 third quarter subscriptions, gained 2.4% subscribers, from 9, 753 620 to 9, 988 105 subscriptions while NetOne lost 9.6% subscribers from its previous quarter, moving from 4, 339 133 to 3, 922 734 subscriptions.
Telecel, which is trading with less than half a million clients, lost 16.9% subscribers from the previous quarter, moving from 469 489 to 389 951 subscriptions.
This, resultantly, led to an overall market subscription decline of -1.8 % as Econet’s subscriber gains were outweighed by NetOne and Telecel subscriber losses.
“The total number of active mobile telephone subscriptions was 14,300,790, as of 31 December 2022.
“This represents a 1.8% decline from 14,562,242, recorded as of 30 September 2022,” the POTRAZ report reads.
“All the three mobile operators experience fluctuations… only Econet surpassed their December 2021 active subscriber base, further cementing their lead position.
“NetOne and Telecel lost subscriber market share by 2.4% and 0.5% respectively.
“Conversely, Econet gained subscriber market share by 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022,” the report reads.
The major highlights revealed for the postal and telecommunications industry in the report for the 2022 fourth quarter compared to the third quarter in the same year are that the total active fixed telephone lines increased by 0.2% to reach 291,324 in the fourth quarter of 2022, from 290,810 recorded in the third quarter of 2022; the fixed tele-density remained at 1.9%, the report highlights.
The total number of active mobile subscriptions, as mentioned earlier, declined by 1.8% to reach 14,300,790, down from 14,562,242 recorded in the third quarter of 2022.
The mobile penetration rate also resultantly declined by 1.7%, to reach 94.2% from 95.9% recorded in the previous quarter.
The total number of active internet and data subscriptions increased by 2.2% to reach 9,914,950 in the fourth quarter of 2022, from 9,700,385 recorded in the third quarter of 2022.
The internet penetration rate increased by 1.4% to reach 65.3% from 63.9% recorded in the previous quarter.
Total fixed telephone (PSTN) voice traffic decreased by 3.6% to record 81.5 million minutes in the fourth quarter 2022.from 84.6 million minutes recorded in the third quarter of 2022.
Mobile voice traffic totalled 3 billion minutes in the fourth quarter of 2022. This represents a 2.5% decline, from 3.08 billion minutes recorded in the third quarter of 2022, the report reveals.
Mobile internet & data traffic totalled 33,576.4 Terabytes in the fourth quarter of 2022, which represents a 3.4% growth from 32,473.1 Terabytes consumed in the third quarter of the year.
Used incoming international internet nandwidth capacity increased by 18.1% to record 272,430Mbps, from 230,677Mbps recorded in the third quarter of 2022.
Total postal and courier volumes declined by 4.6% to record 521,764 items in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 547,125 items in the third quarter of 2022.
Total mobile operator revenues grew by 50.2% to record ZWL119.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, from ZWL79.5 billion recorded in the third quarter of 2022. On the other hand, operating costs grew by 68.3% to record ZWL81.7 billion from ZWL48.6 billion, the report highlights.
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