MARTIN MAWAYA
HARARE-Zimbabwe has registered a decline on international voice traffic over the years, with incoming traffic slowing down by 11,&%, while outgoing traffic declined by 6,3%.
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) attributed the downward trend to the use of cheaper over-the-top services which resulted in foreign currency earnings reduction from international voice traffic in 2022.
According to POTRAZ 2022 4th Quarter sector performance report, the …. (DSL) and …(CDMA) in active subscriptions falls down for a consecutive year due to competition from fibre whilst CDMA was being gradually replaced by other technologies.
However, as of 31 December, 2022 active internet and data subscriptions jumped to 9,914,950 from 9,526,421 subscriptions the previous years, representing an increase of 4.1%.
The report also shows an overall internet penetration growth rate of 65.3%, in 2022 from 62.8% in 2021.
The upwards trend represents internet penetration rate of 2,5%.
POTRAZ says the growth was also recorded on national voice traffic.
“Total voice traffic increased by 38.2% to record 10.5 billion minutes in 2022, from 7.6 billion minutes recorded in 2021. The growth in total voice traffic emanated mainly from an increase in national traffic, particularly on-net traffic, as a result of promotions,” reads part of the report.
It says the total number of active mobile subscriptions as at the fourth quarter of 2022 increased to 14,300,790 as compared to the third quarter of 14,257,590.
This represents a 0.3 percentage increase.
Whilst the mobile penetration rate grew by 0.3% to 94.2% in 2022, as compared to 93.9% the previous year, the upwards trend is expected to continue as a result of the “increased adoption of Internet of Things” (IoT).
The report further shows that Econet gained market share of 5% from a 64.9% market share of mobile subscription in 2021 to 69.9% in 2022, whereas Netone and Telecel lost market share of 1% and 4% respectively.
