Zimbabwe: Econet now controls nearly 70% of mobile phone subscribers
April 24th 2023
Econet is stepping up investments to maintain its leading position in the Zimbabwean mobile telephony market. The company recently signed an agreement with Ericsson for the modernization of its network infrastructure.
Zimbabwean telecom operator Econet Wireless controlled 69.9% of the national mobile subscriber base at the end of December 2022, according to the latest annual report from the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ). ). This figure shows an increase of five percentage points compared to December 2021 when the company held 64.9% of market share.
Econet Wireless owes this growth to the increase in the number of its active subscribers, which increased from 9.25 million in December 2021 to 9.98 million in December 2022, an increase of 7.9%. Meanwhile, rivals NetOne and Telecel lost 12.3% and 26.9% of their respective subscriber base. They now have 3.9 million and around 390,000 subscribers respectively.
Econet shows a certain resilience despite the operational pressure weighing on Zimbabwean telecom operators due to the difficult local economic context. Between December 2012 and December 2022, the company added 1.9 million subscribers and gained an additional 6.4% market share. Over the same period, NetOne added 1.9 million subscribers while Telecel lost 2.1 million.
The growth of Econet’s subscriber base can also be attributed to the investments made by the telecom operator in its network infrastructure. In 2021, the company entered a telecom network expansion race with rival NetOne. Last February, it entered into a new partnership agreement with Swedish technology company Ericsson to modernize its network infrastructure across the country.
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