What has been suspected for a while now has been confirmed in the recently released POTRAZ Q2 report of 2017: EcoCash is synonymous with mobile money in Zimbabwe.
Sitting at a staggering 97.98% of market share for subscribers, the Econet-owned mobile money solution has cemented themselves as the dominant player of mobile money in Zimbabwe.
Similarly holding 93.79% of the agent network in Zimbabwe one can postulate that of the over $835 million mobile money payments transacted between the months of April – June 2017 EcoCash would have undoubtedly handled a large portion of that.
The tables below give a snapshot of the current situation (well, 3 months ago, and judging by how things happen in Zimbabwe, chances are high that they may have changed. NetOne relaunched their mobile money solution and time will tell whether they’re getting it right this time around.)
| Operator | No. of Subscribers | Market Share |
|---|---|---|
| Econet – Ecocash | 3,294,659 | 97.98% |
| Telecel – Telecash | 54,680 | 1.63% |
| NetOne – (at the time OneWallet) | 13,137 | 0.39% |
| Total | 3,362,476 | 100.00% |
From the table above it can be seen that even though Government owned entities NetOne and Telecel have the capabilities of intergrating with Government services, they have chosen not to exercise this option. Their market share sitting at just over 2%, a total of 67,817 subscribers, will fill our National Sports Stadium while EcoCash subscribers can take up the total population of Harare, Chitungwiza and Bulawayo all combined!
As a ratio, for every 50 EcoCash subscribers, there’s just one OneMoney/TeleCash.
| Operator | No. of Agents | Market Share |
|---|---|---|
| Econet – Ecocash | 23,050 | 93.79% |
| Telecel – Telecash | 1,338 | 5.44% |
| NetOne – (at the time OneWallet) | 187 | 0.76% |
| Total | 24,575 | 100.00% |
The agent network follows a similar trend, with EcoCash having convinced over 23,000 agents to sign up for the service.
I’ll be quick to point out however that this figure does not correspond with previously advised figures from EcoCash, where they stated they had 30,000 agents signed up as of June 22, 2017. We’ve reached out to them for clarification.
Conclusion
As a total $835 million was processed through mobile money platforms and I can bet my last bond coin that most, if not all, of that, was through an EcoCash account.
Econet has done well to become the defacto service for mobile money payments in Zimbabwe and maybe Government should be worried of such a monopoly. As consumers, we get worried when their service goes down, even for just a few hours, as a number of people are affected.
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9 comments
Ecocash is the best!!
They have a good service, yes, however, question begs: should they have a monopoly?
what about GetCash? formerly Nettcash
The POTRAZ report does not mention them. Not too sure whether they overlooked them or they don’t have any traction.
Well done Ecocash, l truly now can move money around and get things done!
GetCash is officially dead & buried. The only source of competitive advantage was Zesa, now that has long gone.
Product offering has never been the challenge at GetCash, they have a very impressive palette and their size allows them to be flexible. Zesa remains their competitive advantage as their commissions to agents remains above industry average, that means a lot to retailers out there.
In as much as I applaud EcoCash for the innovation and huge investment into the mobile money system in Zimbabwe ??, I think their dominance should make someone to get worried especially the people on the ground. A healthy market should have an alternative but competition chose to sit back n Watch
Ecocash is indeed more popular. The other service providers should take steps to increase their footprint in Zimbabwe. For example, Telecash is not accepted by some big retailers like Pick and Pay where lots of people shop. But Ecocash is accepted. The smaller players will have to be proactive in ensuring that their services can be used by their subscribers in more places. And then improve on their marketing strategies