Econet strengthened its dominance of Zimbabwe’s mobile data market in the first quarter of 2026, increasing its share of internet traffic as nationwide data consumption rose nearly 12%, driven by continued network expansion and growing smartphone adoption.
According to the latest Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) sector report, mobile data and internet traffic increased 11.85% to 179.33 petabytes (PB) during the quarter, up from 160.33PB in the final quarter of 2025. Compared with the first quarter of 2025, traffic was up 57.28%.
Econet’s mobile data traffic rose 20.14% to 156.4 billion megabytes from 130.18 billion megabytes. By contrast, NetOne’s data traffic declined 23.97% to 22.79 billion megabytes, while Telecel’s fell 15.98% to 149.04 million megabytes.
The gains lifted Econet’s share of mobile internet and data traffic by 6.01 percentage points to 87.21%. NetOne’s share fell by 5.98 percentage points to 12.71%, while Telecel’s slipped marginally to 0.08%.
Potraz said the continued growth in data consumption reflects wider deployment of LTE and 5G networks, increasing smartphone penetration and greater use of data-intensive applications.
“This has been necessitated by accelerated infrastructure deployment, particularly LTE and next-generation 5G footprints, increased smartphone adoption and increased use of embedded data-hungry applications, among other key drivers,” the regulator said.
The report also showed Econet widening its infrastructure lead. During the quarter, it added 13 new 5G base stations, taking its total to 353, and deployed another 126 LTE base stations. By the end of March, Econet operated 7,430 base stations, compared with 4,878 for NetOne and 1,123 for Telecel.
The shift towards data continued to erode traditional voice services.
Total mobile voice traffic fell 8.38% to 4.64 billion minutes from 5.07 billion minutes in the previous quarter. Potraz attributed the decline to lower on-net and cross-network calling after the festive season and the growing use of over-the-top (OTT) applications offering cheaper voice and video communication.
“This downward trend is attributable to the cyclic nature of consumer behaviour during and after the festive season, as well as the gradual shift from traditional voice calls to Over-the-Top (OTT) data-driven applications that offer both voice and video functionalities via flexible Internet bundles at a lower cost,” the report said.
Despite the decline in industry-wide voice traffic, Econet’s market share edged up from 88.32% to 88.34%.
SMS volumes also continued to decline, falling 8.89% to 2.52 billion messages from 2.77 billion, largely because consumers increasingly opted for internet-based messaging platforms.
