eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Leading mobile network operator (MNO) Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has extended its mobile market leadership by growing its revenue market share to 82 percent, and increasing its customer market share to 52 percent, between July and September 2017.
This is according to the latest third quarter (Q3) industry report by the Postal and
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) which regulates the telecom industry in Zimbabwe.
In the report, Potraz says the telecom industry revenues grew by 21percent from $185,6 million in the second quarter, to $224,8 in Q3, in large part driven by Econet’s growth, which contributed 99 percent ($38,8 million) of the incremental $39m mobile industry revenue growth in Q3.
In the same quarter, NetOne’s revenue grew by $1 million, while Telecel’s revenue fell by $0,87 million.
Econet’s revenue growth of $38,8 million in Q3 was a 27 percent growth from the second quarter (April to June 2017) while NetOne’s revenue growth of $1 million was a 5 percent growth from the previous quarter. Telecel’s $0,87 revenue decline translated to a 6 percent decline on its Q2 revenues.
Econet’s revenue market share grew by 3.7 percent to 81,6 percent from 77,9 percent in Q2 at the expense of NetOne, whose revenue market share declined by 1,9 percent to close at 12,1 percent, and Telecel which saw it share of revenue slump by 1.8 percent to close at 6,3 percent.
Econet customer market share grew to 51,7 percent in the third quarter, gaining 1,5 percent from 50,2 in Q2. But in Q3, both NetOne and Telecel lost customer market share, with NetOne shedding 0,4 percent and Telecel dropping 1,1 percent share of mobile customers.
Among the three major networks, Econet’s customer activation drive resulted in the net addition of 460 000 customers in Q3, compared to NetOne’s 23 000 net additions, and Telecel 5 000 net customer additions.
Total Mobile Data traffic recorded a quarter-on-quarter growth of 39,1 percent (1,100 TB), driven by a 56 percent (643 000 GB) growth in contribution from Econet Wireless. Econet’s data traffic grew by 29 percent (or 689TB) quarter-on-quarter, from 2 300 in Q2, to 3 000 in Q3 to maintain a data traffic market share of more 70 percent.
NetOne’s data traffic grew by 401TB, on the back of what Potraz attributed to discounted promotional offerings. Telecel, which recently launched a promotional night data bundle, also posted a quarter-on-quarter data growth of 75TB — from 237TB in Q2 to 312TB in Q3 2017.
