NetOne doesn’t release its financial statements to the public. So, we only ever get to peek behind the curtain occasionally or partially in the sector reports that Potraz releases.
Zimbabwe’s telecommunications sector saw significant activity in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to the latest report.
The report provides an overall picture of the market. However, let’s focus on the performance of NetOne.
Mobile Subscriptions: Steady Growth, Slight Market Share Dip
In Q4 2024, the total number of active mobile subscriptions across Zimbabwe saw a cool 3.71% growth, increasing from 15,116,302 to 15,677,094. This pushed the national mobile penetration rate past 100%, reaching 102.26%.
Within this growing market, NetOne also experienced subscriber growth, although at a slightly lower rate than the sector average.
NetOne’s active mobile subscriptions increased by 2.57%, rising from 3,864,048 in Q3 2024 to 3,963,193 in Q4 2024.
Despite gaining subscribers in raw numbers, NetOne’s market share for active mobile subscriptions saw decreased a little to 25.28%.
While Econet increased its market share by 0.35 percentage points to 72.29%, NetOne lost 0.28% of subscriber market share. Telecel also saw a small loss.
So, while NetOne is growing its subscriber base, its primary competitor, Econet, is growing faster and capturing a larger portion of the new subscriptions or attracting subscribers from other networks.
However, in the grand scheme of things, amassing subscribers means little if you can’t get them to spend. So, let’s look at NetOne’s share of voice traffic next.
Mobile Voice Traffic
The sector saw a massive growth in total voice traffic, growing by 41.78% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
This significant increase was largely driven by a 49.81% in net-on-net traffic.
As a side note, for NetOne this situation is not ideal. See, net-on-net traffic refers to voice calls that are made and received within the network of a single mobile network operator.
Since Econet has the vast majority of mobile subscribers and voice traffic market share, an increase in “Net on Net” calls would disproportionately occur within Econet’s network
The fact that Econet significantly increased its overall voice market share during a period of huge sector-wide net-on-net growth shows that Econet captured a very large proportion of this net-on-net growth among its own much larger subscriber base.
Again, similar to subscriptions, NetOne’s market share in voice traffic declined. While Econet significantly increased its voice market share by 2.17 percentage points to 88.61%, NetOne lost 2.15% to drop to 11.35%.
This shows that while all operators saw traffic growth, Econet’s promotions or network dynamics were effective in stimulating usage among its subscribers in Q4.
Voice traffic per user
It leaves us at this rather concerning position. In Q4 2024, Econet had 72.29% of the active mobile subscriber market share. However, its share of the total mobile voice traffic was significantly higher, reaching 88.61%.
This huge gap shows that, during this quarter, Econet was more effective than its competitors (NetOne and Telecel) at converting its subscriber base into voice traffic minutes.
Despite NetOne (25.28%) and Telecel (2.43%) having a combined 27.71% of subscribers, their combined share of total voice traffic was only 11.39% (NetOne at 11.35% and Telecel at 0.04%).
This disparity shows that Econet’s subscribers generated a disproportionately larger volume of voice minutes per subscriber compared to those on other networks in Q4 2024.
Mobile Internet/Data Traffic: Strong Growth, Market Share Loss
Mobile Internet/data traffic across the sector also experienced a substantial increase, growing significantly by 24.13% from 78.38 Petabytes in Q3 to 97.19 Petabytes in Q4 2024.
NetOne recorded a growth in data traffic of 11.36% in Q4 2024. While this is a solid double-digit growth, it was less than the sector average and significantly lower than Econet’s 28% growth.
As a result, NetOne lost 2.39% of its market share for Internet traffic in the quarter, while Econet gained share.
So, despite increasing data usage on NetOne’s network, the growth on Econet’s network outpaced it, leading to a reduced share of the overall market pie.
Although Econet has a disproportionately larger volume of data, it’s not as bad as it is for voice.
Despite NetOne (25.28%) and Telecel (2.43%) having a combined 27.71% of subscribers, their combined share of total data traffic was only 21.36% (NetOne at 21.08% and Telecel at 0.28%).
Good growth, but…
The fourth quarter of 2024 saw NetOne successfully grow its active subscriber base, mobile voice traffic, and mobile internet/data traffic in raw numbers.
This performance however occurred within a sector which saw overall growth in mobile and internet subscriptions and a massive surge in mobile voice and data traffic.
So, in the end, there are massive competitive pressures, particularly from Econet. Despite its own growth, NetOne saw its market share decline in active mobile subscriptions, mobile voice traffic, and mobile Internet/data traffic.
This shows that while the rising tide lifted all boats, NetOne’s largest competitor captured a disproportionately larger share of the growth in Q4 2024.
NetOne’s future success will depend on how well it uses its growth to compete, attract customers, and keep its market position.
Econet subscribers surf the web more and call more and NetOne has to find a way to increase usage per user to compete.
It will also need to handle tough competition, deal with economic issues, and adjust to new competitors like Starlink.
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