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Postal and Telecommunication Abridged Sector Performance report cited the rise in internet data penetration, the mobile penetration rate hiked to 97.5% from 91.9% recorded in the second quarter of the year.
Mobile Internet and Data traffic increased by 6.2 percent to record 44,67 Petabytes in the third
quarter, from 42,06 Petabytes recorded in the Second quarter of 2023.
Econet and Telecel recorded growths in mobile Internet and Data traffic in the quarter under review as shown above. NetOne recorded a decline in Internet and Data traffic by a margin of 18.9percent. Despite the decline by NetOne, total Internet and Data traffic for mobile network operators increased significantly by 6.2 percent, owing to a 15.5 percent growth in traffic by Econet and Telecel also experienced a huge jump in Internet traffic.
Econet and Telecel market shares of Internet and Data traffic grew by 6.3 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, whereas NetOne lost its Internet and Data traffic market share by a margin of 6.6 percent in the third quarter.
Mobile network operators generated ZWL850.8 billion in the third quarter of 2023, up from ZWL435.7 billion recorded in the previous quarter, this translates to a 95.3 percent revenue growth in the quarter under review.
On the other hand, mobile network operators incurred ZWL430 billion from ZWL215.8 billion incurred in the previous quarter. This translated to a 99.3% growth in total operating costs. Total capital expenditure by mobile network operators grew by
27.1percent from ZWL26.7 billion to ZWL33.9 billion.
However, in real terms, revenues, operating costs and capital expenditure did not increase by the same margins due to the inflationary operating environment which has not spared any sector
of the economy.
This continues to stifle investment in infrastructure as evidenced by a decline in new terrestrial deployments in the quarter under review.
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