The latest telecoms sector report is the first to include Starlink, and you won’t be surprised to find out that the satellite internet service is on a tear.
The Postal and Telecommunications Sector Performance Report by the regulator shows that Starlink amassed close to 20,000 subscribers in less than four months:
Starlink is under the VSAT umbrella, which grew by 513.79% from Q3 to Q4 2024. Needless to say, VSAT (satellite internet, in simple terms) was not really doing well before Starlink entered the scene.
In December 2023, there were 5,703 VSAT subscriptions, and that had fallen to 3,814 by the end of Q3 2024.
Starlink was licensed in September 2024 but was not included in the Q3 2024 figures. So, the trend was clear — VSAT was falling before the 513.79% jump in Q4, thanks to Starlink.
So, Starlink added about 20,000 subscribers, and that is an impressive number, whichever way you look at it.
20,000 in Context
One of the main talking points local internet providers trumpeted was that Starlink was too expensive to be a threat in Zimbabwe. They were not wrong about it being too expensive.
All research, even that of the rose-tinted glass variety, says employed Zimbabweans earn less than $400 a month on average, with most of the informally employed — especially in the rural areas — earning way less than that.
Needless to say, the majority would not be able to afford Starlink subscriptions of $30 a month, let alone the kit price. Here’s what getting one today would cost:
With all this in mind, it is rather impressive that Starlink managed to get that many subscribers in that short time.
The other stat that gave local internet providers confidence was that Starlink had been off to a somewhat slow start in one of Africa’s largest markets — Kenya.
Several months in, Starlink languished at below 4,000 subscriptions in that country.
Of course, one of the reasons for that slow progress — besides the kit price issue — was that the local providers were somewhat competitive, and so many did not feel the need to jump ship right away.
By the end of December 2024, Starlink was Kenya’s’s seventh-largest Internet Service Provider (ISP), with 19,146 subscribers— just a few hundred fewer than what Starlink had in Zimbabwe.
So, in just under four months, Starlink got more subscribers in Zimbabwe than it got in Kenya in 18 months. Starlink entered the Kenyan market in July 2023.
That right there is an indictment on Zimbabwean ISPs. You guys just weren’t competitive enough; otherwise, we would not have seen that kind of crazy growth for Starlink.
The Harare capacity issue
We don’t really need to talk about this too much. Harare, the biggest city in Zimbabwe, reached capacity in just a month and has plenty of untapped demand.
Had Starlink not run out of capacity in the capital, we would have seen even larger numbers in the country.
Africa-wide subscribership
Starlink had about 237,000 subscribers by the end of December 2024. Nigeria had 65,564 in Q3 2024 and is probably the biggest market on the continent.
Little old Zimbabwe with about 20,000 already, has about 8.5% of African Starlink subscriptions.
Africa saw its subscriptions grow like this:
- Mar 2024 – 75,000
- June 2024 – 116,000
- Sept 2024 – 161,000
- Dec 2024 – 237,000
- Mar 2025 – 336,000
That is crazy growth right there, but Zimbabwe’s growth rate is much higher than that.
Fibre in trouble?
The other number to help with context is the 79,416 active fibre subscriptions in Zimbabwe at the end of December 2024. It was a tiny 0.06% lower than at the end of Q3 2024.
While the decrease may seem tiny, it shows that Starlink has halted fibre’s growth. Fibre was growing prior to Starlink’s entry into the market.
From Q3 2023 to Q3 2024, fibre subscriptions grew from 73,634 to 79,462. That was a decent trend. However, in the Q4 that Starlink entered the market, fibre subscriptions fell by 46.
It gets worse. I have had some ISP employees admit to me that although subscriptions have not really fallen, the quality of subs has.
A significant number of people are subscribing to the cheapest fibre packages just so their accounts are not closed. So, they are using Starlink, but their entry-level package fibre accounts are counted in the stats.
So, I predict that in the coming quarters, we will be seeing those fibre subscriptions fall by more than 46 a quarter. It will especially be a massacre when Starlink upgrades its network to increase capacity in Harare.
However, the fibre providers don’t have to take the loss lying down. If they competitively price their services — which use superior technology, by the way — they have a chance to stop the decline and even get back on the growth trajectory.
A lot of Zimbos have tried out the shiny new thing (Starlink) and are about ready to use whatever is kinder to their wallets — and fibre has to be a viable option.
Mobile internet
I think the fibre guys have to look at how aggressively the mobile operators responded to the Starlink threat. Econet, in particular, with its SmartBiz packages, carved out a little space for itself.
As a result, active mobile internet subscriptions grew by 1.52%.
Most of the fibre guys have fixed LTE products of their own — i.e. those geo-locked LTE packages like NetOne Blaze. These subscriptions grew by 13.81% to 102,105 in Q4 2024.
As you know, these packages are popular, and demand has always outpaced supply. I would have said they can increase capacity by erecting new base stations to compete, but I also know how expensive that infrastructure is — hence why supply has always trailed demand.
That said, that might have to be the play, because fibre might actually be harder to expand if you think about it.
Crazy stuff
Starlink came in like a wrecking ball, and these figures show us just how much it disrupted the market. Our local internet providers are not dead in the water, but they have to play it right.
I hope that after reading this, we all appreciate just how 20,000 is a huge number.
Now that Starlink offers kits on interest-free credit and capacity is set to be increased, the threat is only growing.
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