Zim’s tele-density rises to 74,7 percent

Tele-density measures the number of active mobile phone sim cards and landlines as a percentage of the country’s total population.
According to figures from the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, the country had 9,037 million mobile phone subscribers.
Telecel added on the largest number of subscribers since September last year – adding 575 000 to top 1,875 million subscribers while Econet remained the largest mobile operator with 5 686 000 subscribers, up from 5,4 million in September.
State-owned NetOne also grew, adding 156 000 subscribers to its total of 1 456 000 subscribers and latest numbers show that it is now the smallest mobile operator in the country despite being the oldest.
In a statement the Computer Society of Zimbabwe president Mr Artwell Mukusha said the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector was one of the fastest growing in Zimbabwe, fuelled by heavy investment in telecommunication infrastructure which has led to a drastic improvement in the sector.
“Over the past five years, Zimbabweans have embraced ICT innovations fast especially in the mobile telecommunications and in the ICT segments with its teledensity rising to 74 percent.
“Mobile phone subscriber statistics we received from the Post and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) recently show that all mobile phone operators registered an increase in subscribers since the last release of statistics in September 2011,”he said.
He said the next wave that would continue to hit Zimbabwe will include new infrastructure such as broadband fibre optic cables and data centres, telecoms added value services and ICT innovations.
“Over the past 12 months, there has been continued activity and interest in Zimbabwe despite increasing competition, particularly in mobile markets, for example, we have seen Huawei, ZTE, and Liquid Telecom heavily investing in the mobile infrastructure by making key acquisitions in the mobile sector.
“The telecoms and internet sectors in Zimbabwe have come out of 2011 with greater confidence but there’s that nagging feeling that things will never be the same as they were in the last two years when infrastructure was a hindrance,” Mr Mukusha said.
He said 2012 would see renewed telecoms infrastructure investments, not only in mobile and satellite but also in fixed infrastructure including national fibre backbones and local data centres to meet growing demand.
“Since the connectivity to the submarine cables in 2010, capacity sales on these fibre-optic cables linking Zimbabwe with the global world, have outstripped initial forecasts. As a result, WIOCC, the largest shareholder in the submarine cables and is owned by 14 African Telcos including TelOne, has announced that the system will be upgraded in 2012 to more than double its current capacity.
“Operators such as Econet Wireless Zimbabwe will invest additional money on expanding and upgrading their networks,” he said.
Mr Mukusha said another trend that needed to be watched out was the start of a potential war for spectrum as several telecoms licences needed to be renewed by the regulator Potraz as it will start calling for bids this year.
“The market has become much more competitive, margins have dropped and we hope that licence fees will reflect this difficult context.”
The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has also targeted an annual 10 percent growth in teledensity by 2015, which would ensure that almost all Zimbabweans would have telephone or mobile access.