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Econet targets 20 000 new users weekly
The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
November 09, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=1878

ECONET has begun a plan to sign up 20 000 new subscribers per week, while CEO Douglas Mboweni says efforts are in progress to raise additional foreign currency for further network expansion.

The company is close to completing a major expansion programme at a cost of US$20 million to increase capacity from 500 000 to 800 000. Under the current phase, Econet is releasing 300 000 new lines, which will be at 20 000 every week.

"We want to carry on releasing lines beyond the current 300 000 that we promised will be released over the next weeks. Foreign currency is the issue for all of us in this country, but at Econet we believe that a solution will be provided for us," said Mboweni.

In a statement, a spokesman for the company said the company had released over 60 000 lines in the last three weeks and plans to release about 20 000 lines a week through about 30 dealers as well as the company’s shops nationwide.

Econet says market research has shown that there are currently about 100 000 people in Zimbabwe who have a cell phone but do not have a line, and the priority is to get these people all connected in the next two weeks. "Once this has been done it is expected that queues will ease off, but the demand will still be there," said the spokesman.

Mboweni has questioned claims that the mobile phone market in Zimbabwe could reach a penetration of 40 percent, saying Econet’s own market analysis is that real demand in Zimbabwe has fallen dramatically because of the economic situation.

In the region, only South Africa and Botswana have reached that level of penetration, and they have very strong economies at the moment, while the rest of the region is still below 15 percent penetration, Mboweni said.

"The recent expansion we have done will take Zimbabwe to about 10 percent. It will be hard to push above 15 percent while disposable incomes are being eroded so quickly by inflation," he said.

The company is currently leading mobile service providers in a legal challenge to a law that would give state fixed phone operator Tel*One a monopoly over international traffic, saying the law threatens their viability and could force them to bill subscribers making foreign calls in foreign currency.

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