The ‘dollar for 2’ Telecel SIM cards

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

A reader, Tatenda Dzumira, sent us photos recently of Telecel Zimbabwe agents busy on the streets of Bulawayo touting from a loud speaker the availability of “dollar for 2” Telecel SIM cards. The SIM cards are sold from the back of a pickup truck and new subscribers can buy and register for mobile services right there in the streets. “…in Bulawayo they are evrywhere” noted Dzimura, referring to the agents.

Here are the photos:

Telecel Dollar for 2

In a bid to catch up with Econet, Telecel is literally flooding the market with SIM cards.

We asked Telecel Zim PR executive, Francis Chimanda, about this method of selling and he said that the people selling the ‘lines’ on the streets are agents and vendors who run their own businesses and have taken the initiative to promote Telecel lines based on the low price they’re getting from Telecel. He says their registered dealer price for lines is US 25 cents each and the cash price for ordinary customers is 50 cents at Telecel shops.

The “Dollar for 2” selling style became popular in Zimbabwe after the dollarization of the economy in 2009. Dollar for 2 items, which can be clothes, DVDs, shoes, or some other cheap Chinese import, are mostly found in downtown shops and flea markets in Zimbabwe’s cities.

images credit: Tatenda Dzumbira

3 comments

  1. Anonymous

    l saw them in Chinhoyi street 2wks ago doing the same. Telecel needs to bring their network up first. l had to set my mobile phone to 3g only to get calls coming thru.

  2. Chimwala

    If the service as as cheap as the lines then that’s a nose dive for Telezero. Already the service is poor and they just want to congest their already-weak networks. How about upgrading the current services before causing  further congestion?

  3. Beki73

    if you regularly recharge your telecel number you can now be advanced airtime for $1 by dialling *143# you will be expected to pay back in 4 days

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