Econet Says We Got Approval To Increase Price Of Bundles

Recent media reports have been suggesting that though Econet raised bundle pricing, POTRAZ did not give their approval as the regulator of the telecoms industry.

Whilst the Director-General of POTRAZ warned Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) of penalties associated with increasing tariffs outside of existing thresholds:

We have not authorized any tariff increase, If at all they are increasing above their threshold, we will penalize them for such a move.
Dr Gift Machengete – POTRAZ

A source within Econet confirmed that Econet increased their data & SMS bundles within the existing thresholds thus they did not do anything illegal.

Our informant also noted that even though Econet increased the tariffs within the accepted threshold, they still obtained written approval from the regulator.

Negotiations or lack thereof…

The Director-General of POTRAZ is also noted as having said there were no negotiations taking place currently:

There are no negotiations towards Tariff increases so far, We have requested the mobile networks to submit information pertaining their costs, so that we can feed the information into the TPI, which then informs us if there is any need for tariff increase, so that our decisions are informed by facts.

We have it on good authority that whilst there hasn’t been a new round of negotiations, Econet was increasing their bundle pricing within the already established threshold.

Bundles are promotions

Lastly, and maybe, more importantly, is the fact that bundles are and have always been promotional which is why MNOs can wake up and drastically change their bundle offerings at any time. NetOne did it with OneFusion bundles in 2018 and Econet did so when they introduced Smart Data Bouquets last year.