Telcos in US$2.15 b investment

The country’s mobile operators spend $2,15 billion in capital expenditure for the third quarter to September 30, 2022, which represented a growth of 615 percent from the $300,5 million invested in the second quarter of the year.

Among key projects were network expansion initiatives carried out during the quarter. According to regulator, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) over 100 base station deployments were carried out during the quarter as mobile operators increase efforts towards aligning their infrastructure with growing trends and customer needs where mobile data and internet services are now a necessity due to growing digitalization.

The POTRAZ third quarter sector performance report shows that 3G technology had the highest number of deployments at 139. The installation of an additional 120LTE eNode Bs was also considerable.

There was however a decline in 2G base stations.

“The decline in 2G base stations is attributable to an upgrade exercise, where some 2G base stations were decommissioned and replaced with 3G,” said POTRAZ.

In terms of earnings, mobile revenues grew by 104,3 percent to record $79,5 billion in the third quarter of 2022, from $38,9 billion recorded in the second quarter of 2022. In absolute terms, all mobile networks recorded significant increases in revenues in the quarter under review.

However, operating costs incurred by the mobile network operators increased by 97 percent to record $48,6 billion from $24,6 billion recorded in the second quarter of 2022.

Bandwidth costs constituted the bulk of operating costs by mobile operators at 30,1 percent followed by staff costs at 19 percent.

The increases are in line with increasing costs of goods and services in line with inflationary pressures, which have weighed on the mobile operators’ earnings. This trend has been prevalent in the past few years as currency and exchange rate volatility persisted.

“The trend of rising costs is attributable to the inflationary pressures in the economy, from which the sector has not been spared,” said POTRAZ.-ebusinessweekly