Econet increased customers by 69% in 2005

Econet increased customers by 69% in 2005

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S biggest mobile operator, Econet Wireless, increased its customer base by more than two thirds in 2005 but missed a target for 500,000 customers, the company said on Thursday.

Econet said its number of subscribers increased 69 percent to 412,197 in the year to December 2005 after it expanded its network to meet increasing demand.

"The network currently has capacity for 500,000 customers ... management expects the business to utilise the full capacity by 30 June 2006 as significant work on network development has been carried out," the company said.

The growth was underpinned by sales of its popular Libertie brand, a hybrid product between contract and pre-paid mobile phone services.

Zimbabwe has three mobile phone operators, privately owned Telecel Zimbabwe, state-run Net*One and Econet, wholly owned by Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Econet Wireless Holdings.

But the operators have struggled in the past five years to increase their subscriber bases due to a foreign currency shortage which has hindered network expansion, leading to bad reception, while many areas outside major cities and towns are inaccessible.

Foreign banks have not been willing to lend to Zimbabwe's private firms after lines of credit from international donors like the International Monetary Fund dried up in 1999 over policy differences with the government.

This has seen Zimbabwe's cellular service providers fail to meet surging demand for mobile phone cards which sell at up to $80 on the black market, more than ten times the official price.

Cell phone use is booming in the rest of Africa as prices fall due to increased competition and the spread of major operators like South Africa's MTN, Vodacom or Kuwaiti-owned Celtel.

In Kenya, for example, the leading operator Safaricom, which is 40 percent owned by Britain's Vodafone, has notched up 500,000 new subscribers in the last six months to 3.5 million while South Africa's Vodacom signed up 1.1 million subscribers in December alone - Reuters
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