MOBILE subscriptions in the country declined by 2,5% to 18,9 million in the first quarter ended March 31, 2016 from 19,5 million total subscriptions recorded as at December 31, 2015 due to the disconnection of unused lines from the networks.
BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
According to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) first quarter report, mobile lines that exceeded one year of inactivity were disconnected from the network by the mobile operators.
Of the 18 992 082 total mobile subscriptions, 12 900 173 were active in the period under review.
An active mobile subscription is defined as a mobile line which has been used to make or receive a call, send or receive a message or used the internet within the past 3 months.
In the period under review, the total number of active subscribers increased by 1,1% to reach 12,9 million from 12,7 million recorded in the previous quarter. As a result of the increase in the active subscriptions, the mobile penetration rate increased to 96,5% from 95,4%.
NetOne had the largest growth in active subscriptions of 5,5% attributed to the intensity of promotions on their network, hence, consumers moved to maximise their utility, while Telecel was the only operator to experience a decline in active subscriptions.
Potraz said the total number of registered mobile money subscribers increased by 9,9% to 8,1 million as at March 31, 2016 from 7,3 million recorded in the previous quarter.
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In the period under review, of the total registered subscriptions, 39,7% were active 3,2 million subscribers had used mobile money services to send or receive money, purchase airtime or to make payments and this implies that 60,3% subscribers were inactive.
Of the 3 199 568 active mobile money subscribers, Econet had 3 121 683 active subscribers, Telecel had 64 905 and NetOne had 12 980.
The total number of mobile money agents increased by 0,7% to reach 33 497 from 33 259 agents recorded in the previous quarter.
“In line with International standards on the collection of mobile money indicators, the indicator ‘value of mobile money transactions’ was split into three, that is, cash in, cash out and cross network transfers,” Potraz said.
In the period under review, mobile money transactions for cash in handled $449,8 million, cash out transactions ($407,3 million) and cross network transactions reached $1,5 million.
The difference between the cash in transactions and the summation of cash-out transactions and cross network transfers implies that about $40 million was used for other transactions such as merchant payments, bill payments and airtime top-up amongst others.
