Econet Wireless Zimbabwe gained over 184 000 new customers in the second quarter of 2024, growing its market share to 71.59%, according to the latest industry report by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz). The increase brings Econet’s active subscriber base to 10 620 462, up from 10 436 233 in the first quarter of 2024.In contrast, NetOne, the country’s second-largest mobile network, ended the quarter on 26.14% market share, experiencing a drop in subscribers from 4 017 167 in the first quarter of 2024, to 3 877 062 in Q2 2024. Meanwhile, Telecel, the third largest mobile network operator, saw a big jump in its customer base of 17.68%, from 286 213 to 336 821 subscribers during the same period, ending the quarter on an overall market share of 2.27%. Overall, the mobile telecommunications sector recorded a slight growth in active subscriptions, increasing by 0.64%, from 14,74 million in the first quarter to 14,83 million in Q2. This led to a marginal rise in Zimbabwe's mobile penetration rate from 96,14% to 96,76%.In terms of mobile subscriber market share, NetOne’s slice dropped by 1.12 percentage points, from 27.25% to 26.14%. “This portion of NetOne market share was distributed between Econet and Telecel whose mobile subscriber market shares increased by 0.79% and 0.33%, respectively. Econet market share increased from 70.80% to 71.59% while Telecel’s market share increased from 1.94% to 2.27% in the quarter under review,” said the industry regulator’s report.Despite the rise in subscriber numbers, total mobile voice traffic fell slightly by 1.27%, from 3,08 billion minutes in Q1 to 3,04 billion minutes in Q2. The drop was mainly attributed to declining national voice services, except for on-network calls and incoming calls from Internet Access Providers (IAPs). International outgoing and incoming voice traffic saw the sharpest decreases, dropping by 20.10% and 7.66%, respectively, as consumers increasingly turn to more affordable options like WhatsApp, Skype and FaceTime.“Econet voice traffic market share gained 0.02 percentage points from 88.02% recorded in the first quarter of 2024 to 88.04% during the quarter under review. The voice traffic market share for Telecel continued to follow a downward trend as it contracted by 0.06 percentage points to reach 0.07%, while NetOne voice traffic market share gained by 0.05 percentage points to reach 11.90% during the quarter under review,” said Potraz.Mobile internet and data traffic saw a significant increase of 12.50%, rising from 58.44 Petabytes in Q1 to 65.75 Petabytes in Q2. Telecel grew its data traffic 33.74% to 273,751,000 MB, followed by NetOne which grew by 18.08% to 17,049,628,020 MB, and Econet which posted a 10.56% data traffic to 48,424,288,054 MB.The surge in data usage reflects the growing reliance by customers on mobile internet for social media, e-commerce and other online activities.
