ZIMBABWE: Ecocash rules mobile money market with 99% share

By Alois Vinga

CASSAVA Smartech’s subsidiary, Ecocash is enjoying almost 100% dominance of mobile money transactions and continues to maintain a lead ahead of other service providers.

The Postal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s report entitled Consumer Satisfaction Report observes that Ecocash platform is conducting almost 99% of the total money transfer services.

The stats prove that the other two main mobile money platforms NetOne’s OneMoney and Telecel’s Telecash are struggling to gain traction.

“Ecocash has a 94.5 percent market share of the sector, followed by OneMoney with a 4.7% stake and Telecash with a mere 0.8 percent stake,” the report says.

Notably One Money’s market share in 2019’s first quarter grew by 0.9% while enjoying an additional gain of 29.2% of its subscriber base which hit 312 223 from 241 566.

In comparison, Telecash maintained the previous percentage share of 0.8%.

Ecocash continues to dominate the transactions, enjoying a handsome 6,31 million mobile money subscribers in the period under review from 6 million subscribers in the previous quarter.

The report shows that Zimbabwe has 6,67 million mobile money subscribers, up from 6,35 million subscribers in the previous quarter.

Overally, POTRAZ reported that there was growth in cash-in transactions as well as airtime, bill and merchant payments in the quarter under review.

However, there was a decline in the value of cash-out, cross network transactions as well as the total number of transactions.

“Cross-network transactions have been consistently declining and this is attributable to the lack of comprehensive wallet to wallet inter-operability amongst the three mobile money providers.

Ecocash processed 99,4 percent of the total value of transactions whereas Telecash and OneMoney processed 0,1 percent and 0,5 percent respectively,” added the document.

EcoCash is an innovative mobile payment solution that enables you to complete simple financial transactions from a mobile phone.

The platform is being run under Cassava Smartech, an Econet Wireless subsidiary which was demerged last year for reasons aimed towards mainstreaming operation and boosting efficiency.

SOURCE: NEW ZIMBABWE