Harare- Econet Wireless Zimbabwe ended the fourth quarter of 2025 operating 340 5G base stations, 1,825 LTE stations, 1,997 3G stations, and 2,981 2G stations, a total active network of 7,143 base stations across all four generations of mobile technology. In the same quarter, NetOne’s combined infrastructure across all technologies totalled 4,838 stations and Telecel’s totalled 1,123. Econet’s network is larger than its two competitors combined, and in the quarter ended 31 December 2025 alone, it added 42 new 5G stations, 78 new LTE stations, 78 new 3G stations, and 78 new 2G stations, a uniform deployment pace across all four technologies that signals deliberate, coordinated coverage expansion rather than opportunistic infill.
This was disclosed in the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe’s Q4 2025 Sector Performance Report.
The infrastructure lead has produced, predictably, a market dominance that extends across every commercially meaningful metric the POTRAZ report tracks. Econet holds 73.75% of active mobile subscribers at 12,374,206 from a sector total of 16,778,982. It holds 88.32% of total mobile voice traffic market share , up 1.63 percentage points from Q3 2025, continuing a trend of on-net call concentration that benefits from network size: the larger the network, the higher the proportion of calls that stay within it, and the lower the interconnection cost per minute.
Its mobile Internet and data traffic share is approximately 81.2%, having grown 9.79% in absolute terms from 118.58 Petabytes in Q3 to 130.18 Petabytes in Q4. The only metric on which Econet conceded ground in Q4 2025 was mobile data traffic market share, where NetOne’s 18.50% traffic growth narrowed the gap marginally, a function of NetOne’s aggressive LTE deployment of 89 new stations in Q4, its strongest single-quarter infrastructure investment in recent periods.
Econet’s revenue composition in Q4 2025 reflects a business that has completed the transition from a voice-centric to a data-centric model. Mobile Internet and data services accounted for 50.75% of total MNO revenue across the sector in Q4 2025 , the first time data has clearly exceeded half of total sector revenue. For Econet specifically, given its 81.2% data traffic market share and its disproportionate representation among the smartphone users and enterprise data clients that generate the highest revenue per data gigabyte, the data-to-voice revenue shift has been even more pronounced than the sector aggregate suggests.
Total MNO revenue for the sector was ZWG 7.74 billion in Q4 2025, up 6.33% from ZWG 7.27 billion in Q3. Econet’s revenue contribution is not disaggregated in the POTRAZ report, but applying its 73.75% subscriber share as a proxy suggests Econet generated approximately ZWG 5.7 billion in mobile revenue in Q4 , a figure that, at the prevailing official exchange rate of approximately ZWG 26 per USD, translates to approximately USD 220 million for the quarter, or an annualised run-rate approaching USD 880 million.
That annualised figure should be read alongside EcoCash Holdings’ separately listed financials , Econet’s mobile money, insurance, and health businesses were transferred to the listed EcoCash Holdings entity in 2024, meaning Econet Wireless Zimbabwe now reports primarily its pure-play mobile network revenue. The total Econet Group economic footprint in Zimbabwe encompasses both entities.
Average Revenue Per User across the sector rose 4.13% to ZWG 460.99 per quarter in Q4 2025. At Econet’s subscriber count of 12,374,206, that ARPU implies approximately ZWG 5.7 billion in Econet-attributable revenue , consistent with the proxy calculation above. The sector ARPU improvement is modest in USD terms given ZWG stability during the quarter, but it confirms that the revenue-per-subscriber trajectory is positive, driven by data bundle adoption and the increasing proportion of Econet’s subscriber base accessing higher-bandwidth services through LTE and 5G connections.
Econet’s 42 new 5G base stations in Q4 2025 brought its total to 340 , against NetOne’s 26 and Telecel’s zero. The 5G deployment is concentrated in urban areas: POTRAZ’s coverage data shows 18.9% of Zimbabwe’s population, specifically in urban communities, is now within range of a 5G network, with no rural 5G coverage recorded. Econet’s urban base station share is 58.01% of all urban stations across all technologies, confirming that the 18.9% urban 5G population coverage is overwhelmingly an Econet-built network.
The commercial case for 5G in Zimbabwe’s current context is not primarily the consumer smartphone upgrade story that characterised 5G launches in mature markets. It is the enterprise and fixed wireless access story. 5G’s high throughput and low latency make it capable of replacing fixed broadband connections for businesses and institutions that are currently on LTE, microwave, or inadequate fibre connections, particularly in Zimbabwe’s secondary cities and periurban commercial areas where Econet’s urban base station footprint extends beyond Harare’s core CBD.
A business on a 5G fixed wireless connection receives speeds comparable to mid-tier fibre without the need for physical cable installation, and Econet can provision and upgrade those connections through software rather than truck rolls.
The evidence that Econet is pursuing fixed wireless access as a 5G revenue strategy is visible in the POTRAZ data on fixed wireless access subscriptions, which grew from 210,380 in Q3 2025 to an implied higher figure in Q4 as FWA’s share of total fixed broadband subscriptions rose to 54.54% from 51.93%. Fixed LTE subscriptions, the precursor technology to fixed 5G, grew 6.99% in Q4. The trajectory from mobile-first to fixed wireless as a second revenue stream is consistent with Econet’s infrastructure investment pattern and with the competitive dynamics in the fixed broadband market, where Liquid’s fibre dominance is being disrupted from one direction by Starlink and from another by Econet’s 5G fixed wireless proposition.
The sector’s cost-to-income ratio worsened to 59.95% in Q4 2025 from 57.22% in Q3 , a 2.73 percentage point deterioration driven by operating costs growing 11.52% against revenue growth of 6.33%. For Econet, which deployed the majority of the sector’s ZWG 1.08 billion in capital expenditure during the quarter , double the ZWG 508.92 million invested in Q3 , the cost pressure is the expected financial signature of an aggressive infrastructure cycle.
Capital expenditure is front-loaded, base stations must be built, powered, and connected to the core network before they generate a single shilling of revenue. The new 5G and LTE stations deployed in Q4 2025 will begin generating incremental revenue as subscribers in their coverage areas adopt data bundles, upgrade devices, and use higher-bandwidth applications. That revenue materialisation happens over the four to eight quarters following deployment, not in the quarter of deployment itself. Econet’s Q4 2025 cost-to-income deterioration is therefore not evidence of operational inefficiency , it is the accounting signature of investment whose payoff is still ahead of it.
The ARPU trajectory supports the monetisation thesis. Sector ARPU has grown consistently from approximately ZWG 370 in Q4 2024 to ZWG 460.99 in Q4 2025, a four-quarter improvement of approximately 24.6%. That ARPU growth is driven in part by the shift of subscribers to data-intensive services , WhatsApp consuming 20.69% of total mobile data traffic, YouTube at 9.53%, and Facebook at 7.89%, while TikTok, Instagram, and Netflix are categorised within “Other” at 61.48% , services that require more expensive data bundles and generate higher revenue per subscriber than voice minutes alone.
As Econet’s new 5G coverage areas attract subscribers from lower-bandwidth technologies, the revenue per subscriber in those areas should improve, and the network investment of Q4 2025 should begin flowing through to ARPU improvement in 2026.
Econet’s infrastructure lead is self-reinforcing in a way that is difficult for NetOne and Telecel to close in the medium term. A larger network attracts more subscribers because on-net calls are cheaper. More subscribers generate more revenue. More revenue funds more capital expenditure. More capital expenditure builds more coverage. The cycle compounds in Econet’s favour as long as the regulatory environment does not impose asymmetric interconnection pricing, spectrum reallocation, or other structural interventions designed to redistribute the competitive advantage.
The regulatory environment has historically not moved against Econet’s infrastructure dominance, and the POTRAZ Q4 2025 data suggests the market is not pressuring it to do so , the 5G coverage expansion is running ahead of consumer and enterprise demand, creating a quality-of-service premium that Econet can monetise through premium data bundles and enterprise connectivity contracts. NetOne’s Q4 2025 infrastructure investment , 89 new LTE stations, 20 new 3G stations , suggests the state-owned operator is aware of the competitive threat and is investing to close the LTE gap. But NetOne’s 5G count of 26 stations against Econet’s 340 represents a 13:1 ratio in the technology that will define the next decade of mobile commerce, enterprise connectivity, and fixed wireless broadband. That ratio does not close in one or two quarters.
For investors in Econet Wireless Zimbabwe , POTRAZ data confirms a business at the peak of an investment cycle whose commercial payoff is structured to emerge progressively through 2026 and 2027 as new coverage areas are monetised, as 5G fixed wireless access replaces lower-yield connections, and as data consumption per subscriber continues on the trajectory that has driven ARPU growth for the past four quarters. The cost-to-income ratio will improve as revenue from deployed infrastructure overtakes the fixed costs of operating it. The infrastructure lead that the Q4 2025 data confirms is the asset on which that improvement depends.
Source: Equity Axis News
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