Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, Jenfan Muswere said that state-owned Telecommunications company NetOne should take a commercial approach to doing business and clear its debt in 3 months.
“Full commercialisation should be implemented, and we need to adopt the ‘no pay, no service’ modus operandi. All the outstanding debt should be cleared in three months. We need a new performance management system and renewals of contracts should be based on performance with clear goals and targets,”
via The Chronicle
He added that NetOne needs to develop 10 more data-centric product lines in order to gain ground on Econet. This point makes sense because if NetOne was to let’s say give its subscribers more choice when it came to messaging app and social media bundles to include Telegram, Signal, Tiktok and more. The mobile network operator (MNO) would make a strong case for itself in the market. At present even the industry leader, Econet, only stretches as far as Pinterest in a unique bundle offering.
High expectations for OneMoney
The Minister for ICT then went on to say this about NetOne’s mobile money arm OneMoney.
“We look forward to seeing more participation on the mobile financial services sector anchoring on the fact that your shareholder, the Government, controls the greater amount of financial flows in the economy.”
Hon. Jenfan Muswere, Minister for ICT The Chronicle
The government already tried boosting One Money and that didn’t work out so well. Earlier this week, we reported on the Auditor General’s report on the COVID-19 relief funds that were designated exclusively to OneMoney and that report showed how the mobile money operator mishandled the funds.
Secondly, After ZimSwitch became the national switch I thought that could have helped OneMoney. But that hasn’t been the case, as far as POTRAZ’s mobile money statistics which the regulator stopped collating last year. EcoCash only got stronger with its Rewards Program and the unwillingness that Zimbabweans have to jump ship to other services.
“This can nevertheless be expanded significantly to occupy a leading position in the market. We expect OneMoney to have 40 percent national MFS (mobile financial services) revenue share before year-end,”
Hon. Jenfan Muswere, Minister for ICT The Chronicle
To this, I am not sure if OneMoney might get to 40% of the mobile money revenue share. EcoCash strongly dominates that sphere even though OneMoney has tried the 20% that became the 10% discount if you buy airtime through OneMoney.
Mobile Money Subscriptions
| Q3 2020 | Q4 2020 | Difference | |
| EcoCash | 5 425 148 | 5 553 981 | 1.9% |
| OneMoney | 854 320 | 936 476 | 9.6% |
| Telecash | 19 198 | 5 222 | -72.8% |
| Total | 6 325 666 | 6 495 682 | 2.7% |
Mobile Money Number of Transactions
| Q3 2020 | Q4 2020 | Difference | |
| EcoCash | 98.26% | 97.98 | -0.28% |
| OneMoney | 1.71% | 1.98% | 0.27% |
| Telecash | 0.03% | 0.04% | 0.01% |
Mobile Money Value of Transactions
| Q3 2020 | Q4 2020 | Difference | |
| EcoCash | 95.75% | 95.79% | 0.04% |
| OneMoney | 4.16% | 4.10% | -0.06% |
| Telecash | 0.09% | 0.11% | 0.02% |
However, this might mean that there is something cooking at NetOne/OneMoney that might help them claw back some ground. Although, with recent events like the RBZ acquiring 15% of Zimswitch, this could be foreshadowing something on the horizon in the mobile money space.
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