Telecoms sector revenue declines 11,8 percent to US$237,77 million in Q1

ICT Minister Supa Mandiwanzira

MOBILE network operators reported a 12,3 percent decline in revenues in the first quarter to US$167.7 million as the general economic environment and Over-the-Top services continue to affect performance. Revenue in the previous quarter was at US$191.1 million.

According to the Postal and Telecommunications sector report for the first quarter total voice traffic declined 14,2 percent while as a result the sector revenues declined 11,8 to US$237,77 million.
 
“The postal and telecommunications sector has not been spared by the general diminishing consumer spending power in the economy; revenues declined across all sub-sectors i.e. fixed telephony, mobile telephony as well as data and internet services.   Investment in the sector also declined due to the credit crunch as well as liquidity challenges in the economy,” said POTRAZ in the report.
 
The total number of mobile subscribers declined 2,5 percent to 18,99 million due to the removal of unused lines from the networks. Econet had 9,28 million subscribers, Telecel 4,27 million and NetOne 5,43 million. Of the total subscribers, 32,1 percent were inactive.
 
Fixed telephone recorded a 0.4 increase in active subscribers to 335 172. Household subscriptions increased 1,2 percent to 240 742 while corporate subscriptions registered a 1,4 percent drop to 94 430 from 95 785 the previous quarter. According to the report 73,9 percent of the fixed lines are in Harare and only 1,9 percent are in rural areas.
 
TelOne`s fixed voice revenues declined by 13,2 percent to record US$30,67 million from US$35,34 million recorded in the previous quarter. This decline in revenues is attributed to the decline in fixed voice traffic. Average revenue per user was at US$30,58, a decline of 13,5 percent.  
 
Traffic on the fixed telephone traffic declined by 5,8 percent to record 167,980,843 from 178,317,321 minutes recorded in the previous quarter. All traffic categories, with the exception of incoming traffic from IAPs and outgoing traffic to IAPs, registered declines. “As more interconnection agreements between IAPs and TelOne become operational, the flow of traffic between IAPs and TelOne is set to improve,” said the report.  International incoming traffic had the biggest decline of 24 percent whereas international outgoing traffic also declined by 6,4 percent.
 
International incoming and outgoing mobile traffic declined by 16,5 percent and 13,8 percent respectively. OTT voice applications such as Viber, Skype and WhatsApp calling have become popular alternatives for international calling as they are significantly cheaper; this has resulted in falling international voice traffic and in turn falling revenue from international voice services.
 
Mobile data utilisation increased by 25,5 percent to 1,510,379,839MB from 1,203,378,839MB recorded in the previous quarter.
 
The total number of registered mobile money subscriptions as at 31 March 2016 was 8,061,443. This represents a 9,9 percent increase from 7,333,388 recorded in the previous quarter. Of the total registered subscriptions 39.7% were active that is 3,199,568 subscribers had used mobile money services to send or receive money, purchase airtime or to make payments. This implies that 60.3 percent subscribers were inactive.
 
Cash-in transactions in the quarter were US$449.86 million while cash-out transactions were at US$407.26 million. Ecocash controls 98,4 percent of the cash-in transactions. FinX
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