Industrial statistics released by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) have revealed that state owned mobile network operator, NetOne has realized a massive 93% increase in mobile money subscribers.
NetOne’s mobile financial technology division, OneMoney now host over 152,000 active users on its platform signaling a massive gain from the 78,968 recorded in the first quarter of 2018.
The mobile money service is gaining more traffic after re-branding from OneWallet to OneMoney last year.
NetOne’s gain is coming from an overall positive performance in Zimbabwe’s bid to achieve a total cashless economy whose sustainability has been energized by the adoption of mobile money technologies resulting in the country’s improved financial inclusion.
The Potraz second quarter report also shows that the total number of active mobile money subscriptions increased by 12.6% to reach 5,634,511 from 5,005,625 recorded in the previous quarter. All the mobile operators
experienced growth in the number of mobile money subscriptions as shown in Table 6 below:
The number of active mobile money subscriptions is expected to continue growing as mobile money has become an effective mode of transaction given the cash shortages in the economy. As shown above, NetOne experienced the biggest leap in active mobile money subscriptions by 93%; hence the 1.1% growth in their market share to reach 2.7% from 1.6% recorded in the previous quarter.
NetOne’s positive gain in OneMoney subscribers also directly influenced the increase in the number of mobile money agents which rose by 19.9% to reach 41,764 from 34,841 recorded in the first quarter of 2018.
