Econet data, voice & SMS bundles to go up by 20%…

Its the season of goodwill and cheer, but if you live in Zimbabwe price increases are part of the festivities. The country’s largest mobile network operator Econet Wireless is set to increase the prices of bundles by 20%.

Forgive me for sounding a little salty at the beginning there, but the state of things in this country tends to bring that out of me. Prices are just galloping away from what ordinary Zimbabweans are making.

Now, this isn’t to say that I can’t understand the reasons why Econet is doing this. They are also subject to the unstable nature of the Zimbabwean economy. Operational costs for them have increased significantly, for example, the price of electricity went up by 50% back to back in no time at all.

Econet also incurred exchange losses of ZWL$10.3 billion in the half-year ending August 2020. This is because they have certain aspects of their operations that need to be paid for in forex. With the way the local currency’s value is eroding this is an enormous burden on their business.

The last time Econet adjusted their bundles prices was in September. I am sure we are all aware that in terms of the value of goods and services, September is a very long time ago.

So… How much will you be paying for bundles now?

Well, we’ll know more on the 10th of December as to what the prices will be exactly. But Econet did share what some of the new prices would be, for example, a 20 MB data bundle is going up from ZWL$13 to ZWL$17. A monthly 100 MB bundle was priced at ZWL$67 but will be ZWL$84. SMSes which cost ZWL$0.34 will now cost the customer ZWL$0.36.