- Telecel seeks fresh capital for expansion.
- Telecel’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2020.
- Telecel’s broadband infrastructure development,
TELECEL Zimbabwe is planning to rejuvenate its performance and gain market share by expanding its network. To finance their project the telecoms firm intends to raise fresh capital through several initiatives which include joint ventures.
“There are a couple of initiatives to raise capital,” chairman Selby Hwacha said in an interview.
“Telecel is a very attractive proposition. It is the least borrowed network; it’s easier to get into a relationship with us.”
“That makes it attractive for equity adjustments, joint ventures, lending but I can’t get into specifics because of non-disclosure expectations.”
Telecel’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2020 (POTRAZ results)
Telecel is the smallest mobile telecoms firm in the country and has been underperforming for several years ending 2020 with just a 5.5% market share of mobile subscribers behind Netone(28%) and Econet(66.5%) from a total of 13,191,708 million subscribers.
Its mobile money service Telecash was the only operator to record a decline in active users with a massive 72.8% decline in mobile money subscriptions from 19,198 to 5,222 subscribers which constitutes a market share of just 0.1% active mobile money subscriptions. The government-owned firm realized a 0.7% decline in voice traffic market share from 2.3% to reach 2.1% in the quarter under review.
Telecel also lost a 0.6% market share in mobile Internet and data traffic from 1.2% to reach 0.6%. The company also deployed just two bases as compared to 11 and 22 made by its competition Econet and netone respectively. In total telecel has 664 2G base stations, 437 3G base stations, and 17 4G base stations while the countries leading mobile network operator Econet has 2,627 2G, 1,650 3G, and 5 726 4G base stations.
Conclusion
The telecoms companies’ poor performance across all sectors can be attributed to several factors which include their poor network coverage as a result of the low broadband infrastructure across the country as mention above. With the ever-growing demand for a faster internet connection, there is a need for telecel to start investing more in 4G services and base stations, if not 5G to start competing with other mobile broadband operators.
On the mobile money side, there is a need for Telecel to deploy more cash-out agents on the streets for easier access to cash. All in all, Telecel faces a huge task in catching up to its competitors in the telecoms sector and lure in investors because they are legging for far behind.
