In its 2019 first-quarter report, the Postal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) said that mobile money cash in transactions rose 11,5% to $1,17 billion from $1,05 billion in the previous quarter.
The POTRAZ report also showed that Econet Zimbabwe’s mobile money platform, EcoCash processed more than 99 per cent of the transactions. Part of the report reads:
There was growth in Cash-In transactions as well as airtime, bill and merchant payments in the quarter under review.
Ecocash processed 99,4% of the total value of transactions whereas Telecash and OneMoney processed 0,1% and 0,5% respectively.
Mobile money services are expected to continue playing a key role of bridging the financial divide by providing safe, secure and cheap financial services in areas where many Zimbabweans have no access to formal banking systems.
Volumes of mobile money payments are expected to maintain an upward trend due to the significant increase in the number of financial services offered on mobile money platforms.
POTRAZ further reported that there was an overall decline in mobile revenues vis-à-vis growth in operating costs in the quarter, with Econet recording the biggest decline.
All three mobile companies experienced a decline in mobile voice traffic.
Furthermore, there was a decrease of 9.8 per cent in the mobile penetration rate.
However, mobile internet/data usage increased substantially during the quarter under review to 10,202TB from 8,559TB recorded in the previous quarter.