James Makamba on Telecash so far: great launch and great reception

Telecel Zimbabwe chairman, James Makamba, spoke about his company’s new mobile money product last week on CNBC Africa’s Closing Bell show referring to Telecash as having had a great launch and great reception by the market so far. he didn’t share any figures though, something we expected him to do.

Makamba admitted though that as a company they are yet to learn more about the mobile money business and that these lessons will improve the product. Here’s an excerpt of his response after being asked to talk about Telecash:

Great launch, great reception. Competition of course is good. As you may know we are the second largest operator and we’ve been well received, it’s a well known brand. We’ve been in the market now for almost 14 years. It’s going well and it’s going to get better as we learn more about the business. As we learn more about the trends of the transactions, we’ll grow the network, we’ll grow the platform and better our services to the customers.

Makamba also said during the interview that they expect Telecash to expand greatly this year. Telecash was launched on 29 January this year, a whole 3 years after the first launch (and subsequent failure) of their first mobile money attempt in 2010. This time around, the product closely resembles Econet’s largely successful EcoCash service and has indeed become the EcoCash’s closest mobile money contender.

Here’s the CNBC Africa interview video: